


Such Hot Blood

by Fireblasts



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, First Time, M/M, Previous Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 07:42:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fireblasts/pseuds/Fireblasts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To protect both themselves and their throne, Jonathan’s parents fake their own deaths, leaving the delicate counsel of Sharpy and Kaner to keep him from screwing himself over. Kaner, appropriately, only wants in Tazer's pants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such Hot Blood

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh. This happened. This was written during the last ten days of my winter holiday to get myself out of a creative rut and is my first exploration into Hockey ficdom. Please don't hate me too much for any off-kilter character mishaps and any fluctuations in pacing—I hacked away about 10k of unnecessary plot points so some stuff got shifted.
> 
> Standard handwaving for location AUs here. I moved the capital of Canada to Toronto entirely on a whim--it doesn't particularly change the story in any form, but I guess it's important to mention. There's also a little handwaving / manipulation done concerning constitutional monarchy as a whole, as well as the independence of a young monarch. If that sort of inaccuracy bothers you, don't read on. 
> 
> Thanks so much to my friends [Alice](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ricetard/pseuds/ricetard) and [Ari](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AssistedRealityInterface/pseuds/AssistedRealityInterface) for being my cheerleaders. I really couldn't have started writing regularly again without either of them. They also didn't roll their eyes too noticeably when I cried over Skype about how cute Patrick Kane is. I'm a big gay mess.
> 
> [Here](http://8tracks.com/fireblasts/soar-hit-blade-2) is a playlist of some music I listened to while writing this. Tracklist located [here](http://i.imgur.com/xymsaJU.png).
> 
> Fair warnings: Kaner tops; too many feelings.
> 
>  **Future Edit:** This fic is extremely rusty. You can really tell through large parts of it that it was written when I was struggling to get back into the swing of things with regards to writing larger-scale pieces. If you're expecting brilliance of this: don't. If you're willing to take it for what it is, however, it gets the job done and I'm still fond of this.

Jonathan encounters Patrick for the first time in a long time on his way downstairs to the dining hall, the night before his 23rd birthday. They’re walking towards the stairs from opposite directions but manage to arrive at roughly the same time, so it’s awkward for both of them. Jonathan doesn’t really feel like he has much to say to Patrick these days, but he’s coming from the direction of the Queen’s office and looks like he’s seen a ghost when Jonathan draws near.

They take two steps down the stairs, standing on either end and trying not to look at each other, before Jonathan speaks. “What are you doing here? Last I heard you were off getting shot on the front lines.”

"Shot _at_ ,” Patrick retorts in a way he probably shouldn’t sound around the Crown, and Jonathan hears a sound catch in his throat for a moment when he remembers that. “Not shot. Not directly, or me, or whatever.” He lets out a sigh that is not of the usual Patrick Kane caliber that Jonathan remembers. “I didn’t get shot.”

“Good to hear,” he says, though he really hopes he doesn’t sound too concerned with the news. If Patrick’s return from the war meant good news for Canada's casualty count, then Jonathan was glad for it. But, also. Patrick is back. Which is a subject he hopes not to broach further.

“Yeah,” Patrick says. They never seem to be getting any closer to the bottom of the stairs, and the both of them are damning each other and themselves for not needlessly milling around upstairs to avoid this. “It’s—good? Good to see you. It’s been a while. Since I left to tour, I guess."

The number of years—four—since he last saw Patrick flashes through his mind. Part of him is telling him that he really should catch up, that he needs to work on his relationships instead of being so critical, but he has a nagging need to know what Patrick’s business in the castle is. Besides, he hasn’t said anything yet about the too-familiar way Patrick’s talking with him, which is making him a bit uncomfortable, and he mentally marks that down in the ‘improving relationships’ checkbox.

“Were you meeting with my mother?”

“I might’ve been,” Patrick says coolly, as if he thinks he can keep anything from Jonathan. “I mean, yeah. She asked me to meet with her.” He mumbles the subsequent “I’ve been talking with your parents quite a bit this last week actually,” but Jonathan catches it anyway.

“Oh yeah?” Jonathan asks, racking his brain for any potential awards or medals or redeeming anythings that Patrick might’ve come back from the war with that would require several meetings with his parents. He pointedly reminded Jonathan that he _didn't_ get shot, so nothing comes to mind. “Concerning what, exactly?”

Jonathan isn’t even looking at him, but Patrick turns his head away regardless. Unfortunately, they’ve reached the bottom of the stairs now, and they both have to keep moving left in order to reach the dining hall and the castle entrance. Jonathan stands around, looking at Patrick as he seemingly becomes interested in absolutely nothing, somewhere on the wall.

If Patrick thought Jonathan lacked the patience to stare him down in the middle of a conversation that he didn’t have all the answers to, he was sorely mistaken. So Patrick turns back after a moment, flashes a Kane-esque but obviously forced smile, and the two of them continue down the hall.

“It’s about your birthday present, I guess,” Patrick gets out, quickly. “Obviously I’m under strict orders not to tell you what it is.”

“Since when do you obey the rules?” Jonathan asks. The strange proximity to Patrick unsettles his stomach when he says that, and suddenly he's getting flashbacks of a time when he didn’t treat Patrick so coarsely. Flashbacks of when they were sixteen, with Patrick’s hands at places on his hips where they shouldn’t have been, mouths too close, and—

“Um,” he hears Patrick say, and Jonathan snaps back to reality, although it doesn’t seem like it. He’s got Patrick pressed up against the wall of the corridor, one hand on his hip and the other holding an arm, and his knees are bent so that his mouth is much too close to Patrick’s neck. He’s breathing weirdly, too. They both are. “You’re—This isn’t gonna work. I really can’t tell you what your present is.”

“Fuck,” Jonathan says, and recoils sharply. “Sorry,” he gets out, even though the Crown never apologizes. “I don’t know why I—”

“It’s fine,” Patrick stops him. “We, uh, we’ve been there before. It’s not like I didn’t know. I was kinda hoping you’d continue but your eyes were all weird so—”

“No, shut up,” Jonathan interrupts.

“Sure,” Patrick offers like it’s an olive branch. Jonathan’s too embarrassed to continue pressing the question of his birthday present now, silently begging that Kane’s meetings with his parents don’t imply that he’s been invited for dinner too.

As it turns out, he catches Jonathan off-guard by sidestepping out of his way and continuing to the main gates without even saying goodbye when Jonathan turns towards him at the doors to the dining hall. “Well fuck right off then,” he mutters, pressing through the doors only to discover that, of course, since his mother had been in a meeting with Patrick and not followed him down to dinner, no one was yet at the table.

“My father?” Jonathan asks the person who is covering the table with a fresh cloth.

“Your parents have delayed eating by ten minutes in order to finish a meeting concerning your birthday, Your Highness. They should be down shortly.”

Both of them had been meeting with Patrick then. Great. “Thank you. Do you happen to know where Sharpy is?”

“I believe the meeting your parents are attending to actually concerns Mister Sharp, as well as Patrick Kane. My apologies, sir.”

Jonathan’s eyes narrow, and for a moment he thinks about spinning out of the dining hall and running towards the main gates to get Patrick to talk, but then he sighs. He won’t talk, and neither will Sharpy—but he’s bothered enough by the idea that his parents would’ve asked _Kane_ for assistance with his present that he’s going to bring it up anyway.

So dinner starts, and he does.

“Do you think that Patrick Kane is my only friend?” He asks, three minutes into dinner when there’s no other conversation going on.

His father puts down his fork and looks like he’s about to answer, but Andrée puts her hand over his to quiet him. “Of course not. You have Sharpy,” she says, eyeing him next to Jonathan and smiling.

“Sharpy’s my personal attendant, not my friend,” Jonathan says, earning him an elbow to the ribs.

“Don’t even joke,” Sharpy laughs out. “You like me. We’re friends.”

“You’re almost thirty and may as well be married to Abby,” Jonathan retorts. “Is it even legal for us to be friends?”

“Ouch,” Sharpy says, making a pained face. “I guess if that’s the case then yeah, Kane is your only friend.”

“I am _definitely_ not friends with Patrick Kane.” Something about the way he spits that out offends him, but he’s not sure what it is, so he elaborates. “Not anymore. He’s a soldier and I’m the Prince. Not friends.”

His parents glance at each other and he’s pretty sure he catches his mother roll her eyes while his father raises an eyebrow. He frowns.

“Why do you ask?” Andrée says, turning her focus back to Jonathan. “I guess you saw him leaving the castle earlier.”

“He wouldn’t tell me what my birthday present is, and I find it ridiculous that he would have any opinion whatsoever, let alone that you would ask him for it.”

“Oh, we haven’t been looking for his input. We’ve been seeking his and Sharpy’s cooperation. Your birthday is a terribly important event to us, Jonathan,” Andrée responds smoothly, though he catches her glancing at Sharpy for back up.

“Yeah,” Sharpy continues. “You’re a bit hard to encourage fun in. Kane seemed like a good candidate for lightening your mood.”

“He’s spent the last four years getting shot and killing people,” Jonathan mutters darkly.

“Shot _at_ ,” all three of them say simultaneously, and the resulting laugh from them makes Jonathan perhaps the most uncomfortable he’s ever been in his entire life. “And he didn’t kill anyone,” his mother adds as an afterthought.

“What a shitty soldier, then,” Jonathan says, trying to push the weight of the conversation off his back. He feels guilty for saying it and the weight sticks anyway when his mother shoots him a disappointed glance.

“Regardless of what you think,” Andrée says, completely avoiding tact, “we have asked Kane for his cooperation and he is complying. Do not press the issue further, Jonathan.”

He isn’t foolish enough to argue but hates being kept in the dark, so he approaches the subject from a different angle. “What is my present, then? Sharpy mentioned, uh, fun. Are we putting a carnival on for the town in my name?”

“Not exactly,” Sharpy answers. “How do you think we could organize an entire carnival without you noticing?”

His parents add nothing, and Jonathan realizes that it’s probably for the best that he only encountered Patrick today rather than earlier in the week—at least he’ll know what’s going on by tomorrow morning, since he’s being given the cold shoulder on the details. He draws his mouth straight. “Even if it's boring, I'm sure it'll be no big loss.”

Everyone else almost chokes on the food in their mouths and looks away briefly, unsettled. It certainly doesn’t clear anything up.

/

Dinner went quiet after his mother shut him down for bad-mouthing Kane, which Jonathan isn’t pleased about, and he goes to bed feeling unfulfilled and anxious. Sharpy stands in the corner of his room, yawning and otherwise making his boredom too obvious, while Jonathan re-dresses for bed in his bathroom.

“I take it you don’t need anything else then,” Sharpy asks Jonathan as he moves to his bed. Something in the words seems a little out of place and jittery, even though it’s the same sentence Sharpy’s been asking him nightly for over ten years now. Jonathan leaves it be though. He writes off it and every other off-kilter action the people he’s associated with—even Kane, he begrudgingly recognizes—have done as a product of hiding his birthday present from him.

“I’m fine, thanks,” he says, adjusting a pillow on his bed before turning back to Sharpy, who moves across the room to the door. “I’ll see you in the morning then. I’m expecting a good present.”

Sharpy hums a low note that seems uncharacteristic of him.

“Something on your mind, Sharpy?”

As if realizing what he’d done, Sharpy cracks the widest grin he can manage. “Just thinking of what you said earlier. Do you really think I’m old?”

“You’re twenty-nine,” Jonathan says, rolling his eyes.

“That was your point earlier too,” Sharpy counters, still grinning.

Jonathan makes an unimpressed noise. “Goodnight Sharpy.”

“We’re friends, right?”

“I rely on you more than I probably should,” Jonathan admits without missing a beat. “Obviously I was just teasing you earlier.”

“Good,” Sharpy says and nods, taking in a larger breath than normal. “Right. See you later, then.”

It doesn’t cross Jonathan’s mind at all that he doesn’t say ‘in the morning,’ but it probably should have.

/

The knock at the door at one in the morning is brutal and frantic, with sounds like keys striking metal as they miss a lock multiple times in shaking hands also coming from the other side. Jonathan has a headache from it already, and his vision is blurry as he sits up in the bed. He hears his name being called from the other side of the door and it sounds like Sharpy’s voice, but he’s still not sure if this is a dream.

Once his eyesight goes steady he’s at the door in seconds, pulling it open and finding Sharpy had indeed been wrestling with the lock on the other side. “Good, you’re up. Let me in.” It’s not a question, and Sharpy pushes Jonathan aside and slams the door behind him.

“What the fuck is going on?” Jonathan asks, arms crossed.

“Part of the east wing is on fire, and it's spreading over this way. I'm getting you out.”

Whatever Jonathan was expecting as reasoning, it wasn’t that. “My parents—”

“Are being taken care of. I’m looking out for you, so listen to me.” Sharpy snaps his fingers in front of Jonathan’s face several times.

“I’m twenty-three,” Jonathan snarls, batting Sharpy’s hand away. “Don’t treat me like a child.”

“Yeah, happy birthday,” he says haltingly, watching Jonathan’s face twist into a scowl. “More important things to worry about right now. Where’s the entrance to the secret passage? I know it’s in your room.”

“How do you—?”

“You think I’ve gone ten years in this place, as _your assistant_ , without learning about all the fake walls? You used to hide from me in the passage. I’m not dumb.”

“I didn’t say you were,” and then Jonathan trails off, remembering. “The dresser,” he continues. “It’s behind the dresser.”

He expects Sharpy to go over and shove the dresser to the side, not hurl it forwards and crashing on the ground, contents scattering everywhere as wood blisters and buckles from the impact. He doesn’t even get to say anything, or recoil from the sound, because Sharpy’s already kicking in the wall in the space where the dresser once sat.

“You can just push,” Jonathan says, not sure if it’s even helpful at this point. It's dawning on him how serious Sharpy is being right now. Sharpy slams his weight into it instead of kicks and part of the wall gives way, swinging backwards as a door.

“Come on,” Sharpy’s urging, beckoning Jonathan with his hand. “We’re getting out of here.”

Jonathan doesn’t really have another choice except to barrel out of his room and try and leave the palace normally. That sounds like a pretty bad idea to him, so he’s stepping over splintered wood in his slippers and following Sharpy into the passage.

“Will we even be safe here? Can we get outside without the tunnel catching fire?”

“Absolutely,” Sharpy says. Jonathan doesn’t bother to wonder why he sounds so sure of himself. It’s a bravery tactic. He can figure that out on his own. “We’re just gonna follow the tunnel outside and meet up with your parents there.”

“Will everyone else get out okay?”

Sharpy goes silent for a moment and must have been thinking of his answer, because he stumbles over an uneven stone and Jonathan has to reach forward and grab his arm to stabilize him.

“Thanks.”

“Sure thing.”

The tunnel’s not exactly designed for the two of them to have grown taller than six feet, and their heads are ducked down for most of it. It helps Sharpy keep an eye out on the rest of the floor though, and he doesn’t trip again.

“I mean,” he starts at one point, after at least a minute of solid silence has passed. “It’s possible. That some might not make it out.”

“It’s that bad then.”

“Yeah. That bad.”

“My parents though?”

Sharpy doesn’t answer, so Jonathan stops. “Sharpy. My parents?”

“I’m not with them right now, Jonathan. You know I can’t tell you if they’re okay.”

“I’m not losing them on my birthday.”

Sharpy shudders involuntarily. “If they’re getting out, they’ll be out by now. Let’s get the fuck out of the tunnel. There’s no point in going back.”

Jonathan’s gaze makes Sharpy well aware of how he feels about the statement, but he keeps following behind him anyway. More time passes, and Sharpy’s thinking they’re almost out of the tunnel when Jonathan breaks the silence again.

“What about Kane? He wasn’t on the grounds helping put something together for my birthday, was he?”

“You care?”

“One less body to potentially drag out,” is all Jonathan says, but Sharpy hears the affirmative.

“No. Kane’s at his home. I’m sure he’ll be here soon though. Everyone in town will be when they hear about what’s going on.”

“Fine. Good. I mean—not good, but acceptable. My parents and I will manage the media.”

“You’ll have me too,” Sharpy says. There's a little bit of a sigh in it.

“I know.” Jonathan doesn’t bother with adding the ‘thanks’ on the end. It’s unnecessary and they both know it.

They smell surprisingly little smoke when the tunnel starts taking a slope down and they can see the fake wall behind the castle where it meets the outside world ahead of them. There’s a lock on the door leading outside, but Jonathan admits that the key is the same as the one to his room, so Sharpy pulls it from his pocket and the door slides open easily.

No one else is around.

“Everyone else will be around the front,” Sharpy says. “Come on, let’s make our way over.” Jonathan hears his own stomach squirm from anxiety. “Nothing to be worried about, right?”

“Sure,” Jonathan says. “Think positive, and all that.”

Sharpy stares at Jonathan for a moment and runs a hand through his hair. “Let’s go then.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Maybe a little.”

“That’s not exactly comforting, Sharpy.” Jonathan's monotone drives that point home further.

“It’ll be okay. No matter what happens.”

“That’s just depressing.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know,” Jonathan admits. “Let’s walk.”

They start seeing other people almost immediately, all of whom exclaim joyfully when they see the Prince alive. Jonathan brushes past them without much thought—none of them have seen his parents.

He sees servants whom he knows are assigned to the east wing at night, and it lightens his spirits a little. Sharpy nudges him away when he tries to ask any of them about his parents—many of them are with their families, come in from the rest of town.

The fire seems to be out by this point, judging by all of the firefighters standing idly by and saluting him as he passes. The east wing looks a wreck from the distance, parts of it crumpled entirely and other sections visibly blackened from the outside even in the dark. But then bits of it further down along still seem to be smoldering, which makes Jonathan want to yell at the firefighters, but he doesn’t.

They circle around the entire front of the palace without seeing his parents. Sharpy has to keep a hand on his wrist. He balls his hands together so tightly that his fingernails leave impressions in the skin. “Come on,” Sharpy whispers, and seems to know exactly where he’s going all of a sudden. “I know you’re not going to cry in public.”

Jonathan snarls something, but it’s lost in the back of his throat and he lets Sharpy lead him anyway. No one dares stop them or try to talk to Jonathan at all. They push through some bushes into a clearing and sit down next to still-burning pieces of fallen wood.

“It doesn’t mean—” Sharpy tries starting.

“Shut the fuck up,” Jonathan growls. “Of course it does.”

“It’s really not as bad as it seems,” Sharpy says. Jonathan’s eyes narrow and he stands, leading Sharpy to stand too.

The punch to the gut really surprises Sharpy, and takes the wind straight out of his lungs. “What the fuck do you mean it’s not as bad as it seems?” Jonathan says hoarsely. He looks like he’s about to throw up, but he shoves Sharpy back down to the ground instead. Jonathan drops to his knees, considers punching Sharpy again, but he doesn’t have it in him.

The bushes behind them rustle and then suddenly Kane’s at Jonathan’s side, pushing him back into a sitting position and offering Sharpy a hand.

“Patrick,” Jonathan mumbles, clutching Patrick’s sleeve. He looks like he’s about to cry into it, and Patrick frowns. “My parents—”

“Are fine.”

Neither Patrick nor Sharpy can stand to look at the confusion that spreads across Jonathan’s face as he grips the sleeve a little tighter. “What? But they weren’t—” he doesn’t look like he can continue talking.

Patrick pulls something from his jacket pocket—a slip of paper—and hands it to Jonathan, pulling his arm away when Jonathan takes the paper but staying next to him.

_For your birthday—the kingdom, but just for a little while. We’ll be back as soon as we can. Clearing the air a little bit. Love, mom and dad._

Jonathan reads the simple sheet of paper over and over, turning it around multiple times to look for more. It’s definitely his mother’s handwriting. There’s a scribble at the bottom that seems to be a caricature of him, asking if his present is a carnival.

“The drawing was so you knew she wrote it tonight,” Patrick offers, watching Jonathan stare at it intently.

“I don’t understand,” is all he gets out. “Where are they?”

“We don’t know,” Sharpy admits. “No one else does either.”

“But…” Jonathan says. “You knew about this? You knew this was happening?”

“This is your birthday present,” Patrick says, sounding like it’s the shittiest thing he’s ever said. “Your parents faked their deaths to avoid being assassinated and now you get to rule. Also I bought you a book, but I forgot to bring it with me.”

Patrick's joke, if it is one, doesn't go over well. Jonathan just stares at him, dumbfounded. “Assassinated?”

“The war didn’t end perfectly,” Patrick says, eyeing Jonathan carefully. “You know that.”

Jonathan doesn’t say anything more, just hangs his head. He lets Patrick and Sharpy help him to his feet though, and mumbles an apology to Sharpy for striking him.

“It’s fine,” Sharpy shrugs. “I had to wait for Kane. We weren’t exactly filled in on how best to let you know about the whole thing.”

“I don’t understand why I had to be kept in the dark at all.”

“You’ll realize why when you have to face the media in a few hours,” Patrick says. “Your parents said you needed to look like a total train wreck.”

Jonathan laughs bitterly. “I’m sure they did.” It makes sense to him now why his parents seemed unsettled by his comment at dinner.

They stand in silence for a moment, Jonathan looking like he’s stressed to the point of passing out. He holds up the note and reads it again, then scrunches it up and passes it to Sharpy. He's got a weird look on his face.

“That needs to be burned. It’s evidence.”

“It’s the last thing you have from them for the moment,” Patrick reminds him, but Jonathan shrugs the statement off.

“They left me more than just a scrap of paper.”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“Get rid of it.”

Patrick and Sharpy exchange a worried glance as Jonathan pushes his way out of the clearing, through the bushes, suddenly seeming intimidating even to them. “You heard him, I guess,” Patrick says, glancing at where Jonathan went.

“Yeah,” and Sharpy tosses it into the smoldering remains of the east wing and the two head out of the clearing after the King.

/

He realizes in the morning—barely a few hours later, that is—that the entire plan is genius. It’s like he’s suddenly discovered an untapped resource for acting, because all he has to do is think about how he felt when he punched Sharpy right in the gut, and he manages to tear up just enough that every reporter eats it up.

The obvious press conference gets held as soon as the media agents are awake and buzzing. All of Canada has probably heard some variant of the news by this point. It’s fucking seven in the morning, and Jonathan appropriately looks like he hasn’t slept since Sharpy woke him at one. He hasn’t.

“But Prince Regent, sir, you’re barely an adult. Are you prepared for the duties ahead of you?”

Jonathan eyes the interviewer sharply, waiting for her to get unnerved and sit down before answering. He doesn’t take well to the implication that, at twenty-three, he might not be considered an adult. “First of all, as you are well aware, Canada is a constitutional monarchy. I will not be performing duties outside of my capabilities, even though I was no idle bystander to my parents's rule. As the heir to the throne, this is my right, and I am prepared for it in whatever capacity I need to be. In addition, I would appreciate that you don't mock me by calling me the Prince Regent. I am now your King; we will hold an official coronation ceremony another time.”

Someone else stands up while pictures flash off as he finishes speaking. “There are rumors going around, because no bodies have been discovered, that your parents have faked their deaths and fled the country to avoid rekindling the war. What do you say about these rumors?”

He has to look away from the question and grit his teeth for a moment before he answers, but no one seems to blame him. It’s additional prime opportunity for candid photos of the serious Prince-King looking mournful. Only a few of them leap to the chance. “As comforting as that theory would be to me, it’s nothing but garbage. My parents lost their lives last night.”

He pauses, knowing that the crowd is leaning forward to listen to him. Holding back a frown by drawing his mouth into a tight line for a moment, he continues: “Besides, the notion that I would rule what my parents have left me in any manner other than by following their same policies disrespects them. If my parents were targets for what they’ve done, I will be too.”

Sharpy grabs Jonathan’s left shoulder and pulls him back from the microphone. “As the King’s chief advisor, I’m calling this press conference to a close. Thank you all.” With that and a not-so-polite tug at Jonathan’s arm, Sharpy leads him out of the line of sight of the cameras.

The look on Jonathan’s face tells Sharpy that he’s aware of what he’s done, but isn’t sorry for it. “That was a stupid thing to say,” Sharpy sounds like he’s finally picked up Jonathan’s habit for muttering. “Your parents did this so they could protect _you_ , not just themselves.”

“You gave yourself a promotion, then?” Jonathan asks, avoiding eye contact.

“Well in reality, your parents did it. But for press purposes, no—you did.”

“And Kane?”

“He’s going to be filling your newly created position of war advisor.”

Jonathan clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth a few times. He’s not sure how he feels about that, but he won’t dissolve anything his parents put into motion before the fire. “Would it really be a bad thing if I became a target?” The flash in Sharpy’s eyes tells him he’s asking a stupid question. “It would lend my position some respect, which I seem to be lacking if reporters think they can walk all over me. I don't need to be seen as a glorified child.”

“Of course it would be. You’re not prepared— _Canada_ isn’t prepared—to wage another war.”

“My parents might have to return earlier than expected, then.”

The switch flips for Sharpy. Jonathan’s insulted that he didn’t get a say in any of this. It’s not exactly fair, Sharpy has to admit, for his parents to have done this behind his back, but they thought it was what was right. He needs to be aware of that.

“Don’t be immature.”

Jonathan puts both of his hands behind his head and exhales. “Right. Sure.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “You’re right. That was immature. My point, though—I’m not taking back what I said about ruling in the same vein as my parents. Parliament can keep me in line.”

“I doubt anyone was really expecting much different, to be fair.”

“I’m not sure if I would know _how_ to deviate,” Jonathan admits, which surprises Sharpy.

“Wow. Are you nervous?”

“Maybe a little?” Jonathan says, staring Sharpy right in the eyes.

He has to blink a few times before he gets it. “Wait. Now you’re mocking me?”

“You were so nervous last night even though you knew my parents weren’t going to be around. What the fuck, Sharpy.”

“I was more nervous about what you’d do when you found out. And since you, you know, punched me straight in the stomach, I’d say my fears were not unfounded.”

“You had it coming, hiding shit from me,” Jonathan says, but the corners of his mouth are turned slightly upward.

“I didn’t see Kane get beat up.” It’s just an offhanded comment, but Jonathan’s mouth flips into a scowl when he remembers how desperately he clung to Patrick’s sleeve. And then remembers almost kissing him in the corridor.

“You can twist his arm until he cries for me the next time you see him,” he shrugs.

“You do realize you’re going to have to interact with him a lot in the near future, right? Your parents didn’t bring him into the fold for no reason.”

“The less interaction I have with Patrick Kane, the better,” Jonathan says. “I know how to not drive a country into nuclear war. Kane would probably just encourage it anyway.”

“You two have some major friendship issues to work out, don’t you?”

“Absolutely not.” Jonathan refuses to elaborate from there, assuring that he doesn’t accidentally bring up pressing Kane into the corridor wall the day before.

Sharpy rolls his eyes like he already knows. “What did I say about not being immature?”

/

As it would turn out, it didn’t matter that Jonathan didn’t want to see Patrick Kane at the moment, nor take him on as his war advisor. His parents were always going to get what they wanted, but he wasn’t going to be happy about it until Patrick gave him a reason to be. He’s waiting in the front hall when Jonathan and Sharpy walk back into the castle, and he waves at them despite knowing that it would only be Sharpy who would wave back.

He flashes Jonathan a smile anyway, and seems to have loosened back up considerably since their encounter yesterday evening, though Jonathan suspects it’s because he doesn’t have to hide anything from him anymore.

“My study,” he says as he walks past, ignoring the way Patrick reaches out a little and their hands end up brushing together. Patrick shoots a questionable glance at Sharpy, who just shrugs, then follows Jonathan.

“I thought you handled that press conference like a champion,” Patrick says as soon as he closes the door to Jonathan’s private study, causing Sharpy to sigh. “What? If the kid wants to put on a tough face and try and stake a claim for himself as King, there’s not much we can do besides let him.”

“I’m older than you, _and_ your King,” Jonathan says, frowning at Patrick.

He looks like he’s been planning on him saying that. “You’ve got seven months and a childhood legacy on me,” he’s laughing slightly as he speaks and Jonathan’s not sure if he might have had something to drink. “But sure. I won’t call you kid, Tazer.”

“That nickname is not—”

“It’s as appropriate now as it was when we were sixteen,” and _oh yeah_ , Patrick definitely planned this conversation out in advance. Just how predictable was Jonathan getting?

He’s spending his time glaring angrily at Patrick’s grin instead of responding, so Sharpy cuts in. “You never let me call you nicknames when you were sixteen.” It’s probably not the _greatest_ thing to say, but it’s not like he doesn’t agree that Jonathan needs to lighten up.

“Well yeah. It’s not like you and Tazer were—” he’s laughing and looks like he’s about to start making kissing motions with his hands, but he catches Sharpy’s confused expression and the absolute _terror_ written across Jonathan’s face and stops. “Uh, were spending all day making fun of each other,” he finishes lamely.

Jonathan maybe sighs his relief a little too loudly, because Patrick sends him a look that genuinely seems upset. Whatever—it’s not like Jonathan owes him a thanks for having the decency to not _completely_ dredge up the past in front of Sharpy. “That was almost ten years ago and it’s insignificant. Don’t call me Tazer.”

The room practically resonates with Patrick’s wince at the dismissal, but he doesn’t bite back or say anything else. They sit in an uncomfortable sort of silence for a few moments before Jonathan pulls a stack of papers out from a drawer in his desk and clears his throat.

“Perhaps we should actually get to work,” he suggests, but Sharpy shakes his head.

“Probably no time for anything too spectacular today. You’ve got to meet with members of Parliament in half an hour to discuss funeral arrangements, seeing as there are no bodies, and then give a public announcement on the decision so we can hold a public mourning in a few days.”

“Fucking hell,” Jonathan says, sighing. “Fine. Where?”

“The meeting will be in the dining hall. There’ll be breakfast, I’m told.”

Patrick’s stomach picks a perfect opportunity to growl, so he stands. “Guess Sharpy and I will get out of your way for the moment. I’m going to try and pilfer food before the meeting.”

“No,” Jonathan says, making sure to meet Patrick’s stare. “I need to discuss something with you. You can wait until the meeting to eat.”

Patrick frowns and Sharpy laughs at him and pats him on the back, promising to save him something edible, then leaves the room with the door closing behind him.

“Sit back down,” Jonathan says, toying with the corner of one of the pieces of paper. “We need to talk about what happened yesterday.”

If Patrick was smart—which he is, but in unconventional ways—he would’ve known to just smile and ask ‘what happened yesterday?’ with the most innocent smile he could manage plastered all over his face. Unfortunately, he doesn’t, and goes straight for the argument.

“You didn’t have to humiliate me in front of Sharpy,” he says, frowning.

“You were the one who was going to humiliate me,” Jonathan retorts, suddenly slightly avoiding eye contact.

“What? I mean come on, I’m not _that_ bad to look at. You were too embarrassed to tell Sharpy that we’ve made out? Not even to mention it in casual conversation at some point in the last six years? I’m sure it’s not that weird.”

“No, I really couldn’t have.”

Jonathan almost hears the gears grinding to a perfect halt inside Patrick’s head. “What, you never—”

“Well no, but—”

“Your parents? They don’t know at all?”

“It didn’t seem like the right thing to do?” Jonathan tries.

“Nobody’s going to care that we—that you’re—”

“ _Everyone_ would care. I’m the future, er, I’m the King.”

“Yeah. Exactly. I think that kind of puts you above everyone else.”

“The King is not above the law in any—”

Patrick actually snorts at that. “What law? There hasn’t been any law against any part of being gay in over thirty years. Since before we were born? Your mom, remember, she’s the one who—”

“I’m well aware of what my mother did.” There's silence, then Patrick’s suddenly grinning at him a bit too widely for his liking. “What? What are you—”

“I thought we had a good thing going. Interrupting each other. It was fun. I was waiting.”

Jonathan scoffs, but he must be catching a cold or something of the sort because it comes out sounding a little too much like a snort, and Patrick laughs. Jonathan flings an eraser at him and it thwacks into his sternum, earning him a glare that he shoots right back. “As a reminder, it doesn’t matter what my parents want you to do for me, or that they picked you specifically. I’m still your King and you need to treat me as such, not as some childhood _lover_.”

Patrick can’t help but smile at the way Jonathan frowns out the last word. “God, you don’t sound like you mean that at all. And—you’re serious? Your parents asked me to keep an eye out for you and you think they have no idea that we’re totally gay for each other?”

“ _Were_ totally gay for each other,” Jonathan says, despite the alarms going off in his head telling him not to even bother admitting to it. Patrick looks too smug with his stupid face and the stupid way he’s sitting in Jonathan’s stupid chair, so he tries to knock him down a peg. “I highly doubt you were,” he sounds like he struggles with the word for a moment, “out. Amongst your platoon."

Patrick frowns. “There’s a difference. They weren’t my—”

“But you understand where I’m coming from.”

Yeah, but that’s not the point to Patrick. “You seemed to have no problem exercising your interest yesterday.” Patrick recalls being pressed up against a corridor wall with Jonathan’s mouth too close to his neck, and wanting to touch him, and blushes.

Jonathan doesn’t answer, instead choosing to just stare at Patrick until he changes subjects. Not that the next is likely to be any better for him to respond to.

It isn’t.

“So you haven’t… have you not kissed anybody, then? Since, well, me?”

Jonathan goes red and makes a furious face, but Patrick can tell it’s more embarrassment than anger. Maybe with a little bit of regret. Maybe with another little bit of still-wanting-in-your-pants-ness. What Patrick sees and what Patrick wants all tend to blur together sometimes.

“What, have you?” Jonathan says with a huff. “It’s not like everyone around town knows you as the Gay Knight or whatever. Sharpy clearly doesn’t. I would imagine you spent too much time over the last four years _not_ getting shot to really get any.”

Jonathan doesn’t really seem to grasp the concept of flings, but Patrick’s not actually mean enough to insult him over his lack of game. “Maybe,” he shrugs it off. “So you’re telling me that your parents haven’t cornered you about your lack of… girlfriends? They haven’t asked you about that _at all_?”

“No, and I don’t see why they would feel the need to." He looks like he briefly considers the statement despite dismissing it though. "Have yours?”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure my sisters knew I wanted in your pants before I did.” Jonathan looks away, which makes Patrick smile a little bit. “I’m also pretty sure your parents already fucking know, you idiot.”

“What? No. There’s no way they could.”

“I don’t know. Seems awfully likely to me that they know and just don’t want to push you about it. Or they do, and that’s why I’m actually here.”

“They’re my parents,” Jonathan frowns. “If they wanted to know something, they have the right to question my intentions concerning anything.”

“You mean the world to them,” Patrick says, and Jonathan glares at him slightly until he realizes he’s not talking in jest. “But you’ve got a bit of a temper and you’re a bit serious. Not exactly forthcoming. Except for yesterday. In the hallway. Because, well, damn.”

“We need to stop referring to them in the present tense,” Jonathan says. He knows Patrick’s not about to argue with him about changing the subject. “For media purposes. As difficult as it will be to think of them as dead when we know they aren’t.”

“Hey,” Patrick says, standing up and walking over to Jonathan. He realizes at the last second what Patrick’s trying to do, and stands up to try and avoid it, but all it does is make it easier for Patrick to pull him into a hug he knows Jonathan will barely tolerate and pat him on the back. “It’ll be fine. You’ll do great. Nobody’s going to—to catch you and torture you if you slip up at the start. You’ve just lost your parents, after all. They know it’s hard.”

“Please don’t,” Jonathan starts, and Patrick winces in preparation for the ‘ _touch me,_ ’ ‘ _mock me,_ ’ or ‘ _bother me again_ ’ that he’s expecting. “Don’t call me Tazer. It’s unprofessional and sounds too much like _us_ rather than _me_.” He sounds like he diverged from his real train of thought kind of last-minute, but Patrick’s willing to accept it.

Patrick exhales, and Jonathan’s not exactly sure why. “Sure,” he says, drawing back from the hug to look Jonathan in the eyes like something he’s said means something else. “But you can still call me Kaner, if you want. I mean you call Sharpy by his nickname. It’s not like it’s weird or people will think that—”

“Yeah, Kaner, okay,” he interrupts. “Go ahead and call me Johnny then, if you have to. But not at media events. Just… here. Between us and Sharpy.”

“Oh my God, you totally want to be my friend again,” Kaner’s grin is way too wide to look healthy. He suddenly collects himself. “I mean. Are you sure?” His mouth still looks uncomfortable between serious and joyful. Johnny studies it maybe for a second too long.

“I wouldn’t have told you otherwise,” Johnny says, making his way around Patrick and to the door so he can get moving to the dining hall. “Come on, we’ve got a meeting to get to.”

“Sharpy doesn’t call you Johnny,” Kaner points out, and Johnny can’t see it but he still feels blinded by the smile that he knows has crept back onto Kaner’s face. He resists rolling his eyes, but it’s a close thing.

“I get the feeling it’ll catch on.” And he’s out the door.

/

It’s weird—for Johnny (for a moment)—when Kaner nudges him awake the next morning, having slept in a room that was far from his own while the rebuilding of the east wing got underway. Kaner was not particularly sunshine and rainbows either, voicing a loud sigh when Johnny groans and his eyes open slightly. “They woke me up _so early_ just to get you out of bed, don’t even complain.”

“Fuck,” Johnny says, recognizing that the voice and figure above him belong to neither Sharpy nor his parents—like he’s used to if anyone comes around to wake him up. “God, Kaner, what are you doing in my bedroom?”

“Waking you up? I don’t know why though. You still look like you’re running on empty.”

“Don’t I have fucking bodyguards or something? How did you get in?”

Kaner makes a face like it’s one of the stupidest questions he’s ever heard, but he isn’t going to bring that up with Johnny because neither of them is awake enough to bother with it. “This may come as a surprise to you, but as both your friend _and_ counsel on avoiding nuclear war while your parents are away, I’m pretty much doubling as your bodyguard.”

“You got fucking shot in the last war,” Johnny groans, collapsing back into the sheets. “What good are you to me as a bodyguard?”

“Shot _at_ ,” Kaner pointedly clarifies again, frowning. “I know you’re not a morning person, but if you keep saying that I’m going to start feeling like you don’t care.” Johnny rolls his eyes. “And by the way, me not getting shot is more than I can say for you if you don’t keep a low profile at your next few press conferences and meetings with the helms of foreign governments.”

“I’m the King—it’s not possible for me to keep a low profile.” He sits up again, neither uneasy nor perfectly content with Kaner towering over him, and shuffles to the side of the bed. “Besides, you told me yesterday that you thought I did the right thing at that press conference.”

“Yeah, yeah. Your continued show of confidence to your people will do you a lot of good when you’re six feet under. Don’t mix up getting away with putting on a brave face the day after your parents die and being too cocky.”

Johnny scoffs and stands up, bumping shoulders with Kaner as he walks from his bed to the table nearby where coffee’s been set out. “You start off wise in the morning and get less and less brilliant as the day wears on?"

Kaner knows the right response is to just shrug the remark off with ‘something like that,’ and let it be, but he knows Johnny too personally to let him get away with it. “Doesn’t take much to be smarter than you when it comes to not becoming the target of every freelance assassin in North America,” he says.

“What makes you say that?” Johnny’s eyes narrow slightly, trying to convey a look of annoyance to Kaner, but they get too close to closed and he starts yawning, so he covers it up by taking a long drink from his coffee mug.

“Let’s play a guessing game. Who am I? Bit of a temper, a bit too serious, now the King, not against suggesting aggressive maneuvers and declarations of war to Parliament. Ring any bells?”

They do, but it’s too early to think of a good rebuttal—‘ _Sounds like my kind of guy,_ ’ he’ll think of later, then blush—and Johnny’s not going to prove Kaner right by getting mad about it. “Thanks for the coffee,” he says almost too pleasantly.

“Who says _I_ brought it for you?”

“Don’t act like you would pass up the chance to take the tray from some kitchen assistant right outside my door so you could earn brownie points with the King.”

“Please,” Kaner laughs. “I don’t need brownie points with you, my delightfully high-strung best friend. But sure, you caught me. I took the coffee tray so I could spit in it.”

Johnny takes another drink regardless, which makes Kaner laugh again even though he can see Johnny rolling his eyes at Kaner’s terminology. “We don't see each other for four years while you’re in the military and you still think of me as your best friend? You’re definitely not the charmer you used to be, then.”

“Hey, I made plenty of pals elsewhere. There’s just something special about your oddly shaped face.” Kaner winks distastefully at him.

The coffee burns his throat going down and he almost chokes on it. “Maybe it would be in both of our best interests if you thought of me as your King rather than your friend while you advise me on matters of war.”

“Like there’s a difference?”

Johnny puts his coffee mug back on the tray. He wants to make the conversation end _slightly_ more than he wants to lecture Kaner on respecting him, even if it would go straight over his head. “I need to shower, okay?”

He’s expecting Kaner to pinch his nose and make fun of him that way, but instead he bows deeply and grins too much through the tight line he’s tried to draw his mouth into. “Of course, Your Majesty. I’ll leave.”

“Ah, no,” Johnny starts before he’s completely sure of what he wants to say. “Wait for me? Outside the room. I need you to come with me to my study so we can look over previous treaties and discuss what you think I should say at my next press conference.”

“Don’t you want breakfast?” Kaner asks, and Johnny catches the glint of satisfaction in his eyes, like it’s a big deal that Johnny would bother taking him seriously. Maybe it is.

“We’ll find Sharpy and have him get someone to bring us something.”

Kaner shrugs, but the rest of his body language tells Johnny that he’s more than pleased with the idea, and he heads to the door of Johnny’s temporary room. “Let me know when you’re ready then.”

“Yeah.”

Johnny slips off to shower and Kaner closes the door behind him, unable to resist performing a celebratory fistpump.

/

“God, do you know anything about war?”

The look on Kaner’s face tells Johnny that he did, in fact, learn some things about war while he was away, but that they aren’t the things that Johnny wants him to know. “I know how not to get shot.”

“I think there’s a reason there’s never been a position of war advisor before,” Sharpy points out. “Parliament usually takes care of it. No offense, Pat.”

“Kaner,” Johnny mumbles, sorting out papers on his desk. Kaner beams at the recognition and Sharpy gets an amused look on his face, but Johnny ignores both of them. “You’re a glorified bodyguard,” he says, looking back up.

“A trustworthy one, at least?”

It occurs to Johnny to _not_ say the first thing that comes to his mind out loud—that Kaner is probably more likely to put his head between his thighs than a knife between his ribs. “My parents must see some sort of redeeming quality in you. We’ll go with trustworthiness, sure.”

Kaner winks at Johnny since Sharpy isn’t looking at him. That’s starting a habit that really needs to stop. “I appreciate your kind words, Johnny." God, he lays it on thick sometimes.

Johnny’s eyes drop back down to his papers without saying anything, and Sharpy keeps glancing between the two of them. “Kaner? Johnny? Nicknames? Do I get to call you Johnny or is this some sort of delayed teenage rebellion phase?”

“Everyone calls you Sharpy,” Johnny says with a shrug, like it wasn’t common knowledge.

“He’s not budging on letting me call him Tazer again,” Kaner adds, frowning at Sharpy, who pats his shoulder.

“That’s a good nickname though. You think he’ll reconsider?”

“Oh, I hope so. Johnny’s such a boring name.”

“Wow. I’m right here.”

“Don’t you have treaties to look over?” Sharpy asks Johnny, who definitely seems to be regretting everything about this arrangement already. “We haven’t really been given any jobs to do.”

“Aren’t you the one who gets to finalize all the plans concerning the funeral so I don’t have to?”

“Yeah, which is _garbage_ ,” Sharpy says distastefully. “This is not what I had in mind when your parents told me I would get to be your chief advisor."

“What’s the status on that? We didn’t get much of a solid suggestion out of Johnny yesterday,” Kaner asks so Johnny doesn’t have to. Indeed, the King has re-hung his head and seems falsely intent on studying his paperweight.

“Tomorrow, noon, and you get to be officially crowned right afterwards.”

Johnny lays his head down on his desk. “A day full of pretending my parents are dead. Exciting.”

“That’s every day from now until your parents return, unfortunately,” Sharpy says, looking apologetically at Johnny when he lifts his face up to look at him.

“I’ll kick you in the shin every few minutes if you think it’d help you cry,” Kaner offers, which only earns him a passing look of _shut the fuck up_ from both of them.

“Having to rely on you as bodyguard makes me cry just fine, thanks.”

“Oh, speaking of that,” Sharpy cuts in before Kaner can get off any sort of retort except a thumbs down. “You have your first ambassadorial trip as King coming up in the next few days. Originally your mother was to make the trip, but that obviously can’t happen, and the Swiss government was promised Crown representation so they're more than happy to embrace your presence instead.”

“Oh, fuck,” Johnny sighs. “The banking deals. I hate that shit.” Between leaving Kaner and Sharpy in charge of his well-being and deciding to fake their deaths right before the closure of the most important economic agreement Canada will likely ever make, Johnny’s starting to think his parents are purposely messing with him.

“Kaner will be accompanying you, so it won’t be all bad,” Sharpy continues. Kaner grins gratefully at the compliment, though Johnny seems less than enthused.

“We won’t be doing any sightseeing in Geneva,” Johnny says, and to his credit it doesn’t seem to impact Kaner’s smile.

“As long as my phone bill gets paid by the Crown so I can call Erica and tell her about all of the things I’m not getting to see and the chocolate I’m not buying her, I don’t mind.”

“One chocolate shop,” Johnny says evenly. “And you’re buying something for both of us too,” he adds, pointing between himself and Sharpy.

“I won’t be with you, I’m afraid,” Sharpy says, which causes Johnny to frown. “Your parents made it very clear to Kaner and I that one of us is to stay here at the castle at all times. For Parliament reasons.”

“Why can’t you come instead of Kaner?” Johnny asks, just to see Kaner shoot him a dirty look. “Wouldn’t it look fishy for my war advisor to be joining me on a purely economic trip?”

“Considering you basically painted a big target on your forehead at the press conference yesterday, I doubt it’d come as a surprise that you’re bringing me along. I'll get to play diplomat or something while you talk big bucks and banks,” Kaner says, looking bored by the prospect. “Besides, no one else would want to go with you. And I’m your bodyguard.”

“I know,” Johnny says. “Just giving you a hard time so you’ll start giving me a reason not to.”

“Wow, your motivational speeches are amazing. We should just cut all of your speechwriters from the budget."

“My mother wrote all of her own speeches,” Johnny says defensively.

“If only she would have left you some flash cards on what to say at the press conference after the fire,” Kaner says, looking at Sharpy with a thoughtful expression. He returns it, nodding sagely.

“Just how many times are we going to bring that up?”

“We’re just giving you a hard time so you’ll start giving us a reason not to,” Sharpy mocks, bumping fists with Kaner. Johnny suddenly feels like most conversations he has these days are just set-ups for jokes. His life is such a mess.

“At least I’ve actually been reading through important war information I hadn’t bothered with before,” Johnny says, eyeing Kaner. “Which I’m pretty sure is someone else’s job. Come on, sit down.”

“Uh,” Kaner mumbles, “where?”

Johnny scoots his chair over and points to the space next to him. “Bring your chair around here. Sit next to me so I can keep an eye on you and see if you actually manage to digest any information before we go to Switzerland.”

“You’ve got three days,” Sharpy says, patting Kaner on the back. “Have fun! As the King’s most important ally, I’ve got a whole bunch of reading to do. In bed.”

“You still with Abby?” Kaner asks, causing Sharpy to turn red.

“That’s totally not what I meant. I need a nap. But yes.”

“That explains why you’re more pleasant than Johnny then.”

Sharpy's mouth opens slightly and then he hightails it out of the room as fast as possible, somewhat fearing for Kaner’s well being.

“Is this detention or something?” Kaner asks, looking bored as he swings a chair around Johnny’s desk and ends up sitting next to him. Their knees push against each other awkwardly because of the lack of space behind the desk, but neither of them brings it up.

“Something like that. Now read.”

“Yes _dad_ ,” Kaner says, encouraging an eye-roll from Johnny.

It doesn’t take too long for Kaner’s left foot to ‘accidentally’ swing around the back of Johnny's right. Neither of them say anything about it, and in all honesty Kaner's not sure if it even registers as something abnormal on Johnny's radar. He leaves it there for a few minutes before his foot starts to feel uncomfortable. He's not sure if it's a trick of the light, but Johnny's intense downward stare at his papers seems to get heavier when his foot drifts away.

Kaner’s certainly grinning though.

/

It’s almost disappointing to Kaner how easily Johnny takes to getting woken up the next morning. He’s still not a morning person, and the early reminder that he’s got to participate in a parade celebrating the lives of his pseudo-dead parents doesn’t necessarily help him wake up. But he doesn’t make any comments about how he’d prefer it being Sharpy who woke him up. He accepts the coffee that Kaner pushes at him with genuine thankfulness. He even takes the joke Kaner makes about the dark circles under his eyes bringing out the weirder angles of his face in good humor.

He feels momentarily insignificant when he gets to his study after his shower and Kaner’s already there, having thought that the invitation to walk with him again just went unsaid. It’s something he’ll worry about clarifying—for both of them—after the funeral.

Which, ugh. Sharpy comes to get them just before eleven, when they’re both looking surprisingly absorbed within their reading, telling Johnny specifically that he’s got all sorts of things he needs to wear for the funeral and the following coronation.

“I think he’s right. He looks better in red.”

The glare Johnny sends Kaner is two-fold, because first of all _wow tone it down with the gay there, buddy_ but also _are you saying I don’t look good in purple?_

“Purple’s the color of royalty. I’m the King, I’m getting crowned. It makes sense."

“We’re going to a funeral first,” Kaner reminds him, doing his best to avoid checking himself out because he actually looks pretty smart in the black suit Sharpy threw at him. “And hello, I was agreeing with you.”

“They wanted him to stand out from the rest of the crowd,” Sharpy says, shrugging. “Don’t ask me why.”

“Why don’t we give him a sign to hold too?”

“Too tacky,” Sharpy sneers. “Even for someone in a purple suit.”

“I’m going to have both of you exiled from Canada if you’re not careful,” Johnny says, glancing between them.

“We’re really scared,” Kaner says, pausing for a moment. “Scared for a Canada that’s ruled by a King who can’t get himself up in the mornings.”

“You don’t _have_ to do that, you know.”

Kaner and Sharpy share a glance that has doubt written all over it. “Whatever you say, Your Highness.”

“If you’re going to mock me like that I’m going to revoke your Johnny privileges.”

Sharpy rolls his eyes, but Kaner frowns and some of it seems genuine, like he’s upset that some sort of nickname territory that he just recently reclaimed might get taken back from him.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I don’t know, _Patrick_. Wouldn’t I?”

Sharpy covers his mouth as he exhales a fake gasp of surprise, but Kaner runs his hands through his hair like the name legitimately stresses him out. He turns his nose up, then looks at Sharpy. “He was talking to you, obviously.”

“Yeah, definitely. Not using nicknames sure would get confusing around here. Good thing Johnny loves to surround himself with Patricks. It’s like he’s got a fetish for the name.”

Johnny’s definitely starting to wonder how much Sharpy knows that he isn’t letting on, and from the grin that Kaner’s trying to suppress, so is he.

“Come on,” he says, brushing the comment off. “We should get going.”

“Are they gonna feed us at the funeral?” Kaner asks, and suddenly the three of them are aware that they skipped lunch in favor of getting dressed. He sulks at Sharpy. “Seriously, who holds a funeral at noon?”

“We can grab food on the way out the door you big baby.”

“If you spill food on your suit I’m going to point it out to the entire crowd,” Johnny threatens.

“It’d make them laugh more than any of the probably shitty jokes you’re going to tell!”

/

As it turns out, Johnny didn’t _think_ of any shitty jokes to tell the crowd of people waiting for him outside. What was supposed to happen is that the funeral motorcade was going to make a few circles around the palace, down some streets further into Toronto, then return to the palace grounds. Then he was expected to give some sort of motivational speech to the people that simultaneously _didn’t_ make him seem like someone who should be assassinated as soon as possible. Then he got crowned. Fun stuff, all of it.

That whole ‘give a good speech’ thing didn’t really seem all that important yesterday, when it was a thought sandwiched between two much more important thoughts. Parental fake funerals and subsequent coronations were life-changing events, really. There was also that thing Kaner had done with his foot when they were in the study. That had preoccupied his thoughts as well.

So he didn’t really prepare a speech.

“So I didn’t really prepare a speech?” he says hesitantly to Kaner, both of them settling into the back of the third car in the motorcade. Sharpy’s somewhere else—which is unfortunate because he would probably know how to wing the ‘Dang My Parents Are Dead Thanks For Crowning Me King’ speech better than Kaner would. Kaner would also give it a ridiculous name like that.

Kaner just kind of blinks at him for a few moments. “You’re definitely kidding, right?”

“No. I’ve been distracted.”

“Need someone to babysit you while you work from now on?"

Jonathan scoffs. “More like I need someone to babysit you so I don’t have to.”

“I’m perfectly capable of reading on my own rather than have you looking over my shoulder every three minutes.”

The motorcade makes its first of three circles around the palace grounds before either of them says anything else. Patrick breaks the silence. “So you’ve got, like, twenty minutes to prepare a speech. You should probably get started.”

“Well whatever it turns out being it can’t be as bad as the other one.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

Jonathan stares Kaner down. “Will you make up your mind about where you stand on that speech?”

Kaner shrugs and doesn’t look at him. “I was just saying that _I_ thought you did fine. But I’m also not a foreign country who suddenly has to regard you in a manner they never have before. It’s different.”

Johnny isn’t really sure of what to do besides just stare at Kaner for a moment. There seems to be far too much of that in his life recently. The silence must drag on for slightly too long—Johnny’s forgotten that it’s his turn to say something—because Kaner turns his head to look at him, curious. "Something wrong?"

“Will you help me with this?” It's—whatever. He's just asking to be nice.

“I’m sure you’re capable of doing it yourself.”

“My parents valued your input,” Johnny says. “So do I.”

Kaner looks like he’s resisting the urge to punch Johnny in the shoulder. He caves, though, and does it anyway. “You should. I’m pretty much your only hope of not getting killed in Switzerland.”

“Canada is totally fucked,” Johnny says, sighing.

Kaner leans back against his seat and laughs, watching as Johnny tries to scribble out an opening line onto a notepad. “Yeah, maybe.”

There must be a law written into some dumb Canadian legal scripture that says that motorcades can’t move faster than fifteen kilometers per hour, because they end up having an entire forty-five minutes to devise some sort of speech that won’t get Johnny painted as an idiot in every newspaper in the world. Probably. It’s not great, and Johnny’s still desperately trying to scratch out all of the gay euphemisms that Kaner wrote down when he stole the notepad from him, but it’ll do. Again: probably.

They can hear a crowd milling around at the front of the gardens when they get out of the car, around the back of the palace. They’re waiting for him to do something important, and it’s making him feel like the bagel that he shoved in his mouth before getting into the car is going to come to life inside his stomach.

Kaner must be able to read the look of discomfort on his face (Johnny doesn’t think he’s really hiding it too well anyway), because he slings his arm around Johnny’s shoulder and pulls him close as they walk to meet the crowd.

“We can’t stay like this,” Johnny whispers, because they’re too close to cameras for him to feel anything but completely unnerved.

“I know,” Kaner says back. “Just relax. We wrote a good speech.”

“We wrote a passable speech.” Johnny doesn’t look too happy about the whole thing.

“No point in giving your best speech at the start of your rule,” Kaner replies, squeezing his hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “Don’t bring out your big guns and no one will feel like they need to bring out theirs.”

“You’re the absolute worst,” Johnny says, but he manages to break his frown and his breathing doesn’t seem to be as loud as it usually is. “Thanks though.”

Kaner shoots him a look that almost makes it seem like he’s judging Johnny for thanking him. “Hey, I’m not the one who has to deliver the speech. Don’t thank me until that’s over and you get crowned. I might start taking your threats to kick me out of Canada seriously after that.”

“Don’t you dare,” Johnny says back, looking pensive. “I don’t think it’d look too good for my cause if my war advisor defected to another country.”

“Oh is that all you care about?” Kaner tries his best to pout, but neither of them can help but laugh.

A camera catches them, eyes closed and grinning, Kaner’s arm still slung over Johnny’s shoulder, and they quickly pull away from each other. Kaner whispers an apology, but Johnny just shrugs. “Not a big deal to get one picture of me looking happy in the newspapers, I guess.”

“As long as you don’t mind that it was with me,” Kaner says back, getting the words in between camera flashes so he doesn’t end up looking ridiculous if he can avoid it.

“We’re going to Switzerland together in two days. I think the people will appreciate pictures like that.”

“Speaking of your people,” Kaner trails off, motioning to where Sharpy’s standing, up near the podium. “Time for you to give that speech.”

“I’m just talking about my parents,” Johnny says, sounding so much calmer than he did when they were getting out of the car, let alone during the improvised speechwriting spectacle. “How hard can it be?”

“Sharpy and I are behind you all the way,” Kaner gestures, falling in next to Sharpy as Johnny ascends the steps to the microphone and podium that have been set up for his speech.

It goes pretty well. He talks about what his parents meant to him—a tactic that Kaner suggested that made a surprising amount of sense, as well as being incredibly easy. He talks about the war, how losing something has been a part of everyone’s lives far too much recently. It’s a good move, apparently, because the crowd seems to mourn for everyone together, and he feels like he’s made a smart decision for the first time since he got put in charge.

It goes on for twenty minutes, which is more than he expected to get away with considering his scribbled notes ended up being a jumbled mess of thoughts and Kaner’s doodles. He doesn’t make the crowd laugh with any awful jokes, but they don’t seem to mind when he closes the speech up, because the cheers and applause come enthusiastically anyway. He smiles at them—a lot of pictures get taken over the course of the speech but these are the ones that will get printed in the newspapers tomorrow (along with the one of him and Kaner).

“Thank you all for listening,” he finishes. “Now, on a lighter note, I believe it’s time to put a giant piece of jewelry on my head that’s a lot more uncomfortable than you’d expect. If we could just move this—”

The podium gets hauled away, microphone taken with it, and Johnny is left sort of confused until he sees Kaner and Sharpy helping push a portable throne out to where he’s standing. Kaner pats his arm and quietly tells him to sit so he doesn’t look like an idiot, and then he's gone and Sharpy’s at the podium.

Sharpy doesn’t make a big show of it. Considering it’s almost two and he only managed to grab a bagel on his way out the door to the funeral procession, Johnny’s pretty pleased about that. They crown him King Jonathan to the crowd’s wild approval, and he feels pretty good about himself, up on his throne.

It’s not lost on him that Kaner spends the entire time grinning like an absolute _idiot_ , and he has a hard time not grinning back at him too often.

/

The time between the coronation and the trip to Switzerland is mostly spent in alternating hours of brushing up on his economic practices and trying to get Kaner to read treaties rather than bother him. It’s not working very well, largely because Kaner’s really grabbed onto this whole idea of Swiss Neutrality and realized that he doesn’t need to make sure the government of Switzerland isn’t going to carpet-bomb Canada while they’re visiting.

“You’re going to make me look like an idiot,” Johnny’s saying, not entirely pleased with the fact that Kaner decided to help him with his tie without him asking for it.

“What? I know how to tie a tie, dude.”

“I mean in Switzerland. You can’t goof off and tour chocolate factories while I’m doing important business. You represent me and the Crown now.”

Kaner shoots him a troubled look. “Where’s this coming from?”

“You haven’t exactly been the most diligent of advisors.”

“You called me a glorified bodyguard a few days ago,” Kaner says, shrugging, as he finishes tightening Johnny’s tie. “That okay?” Johnny nods. “Cool. You sure this isn’t some sort of gay thing?”

Johnny frowns for a moment, taking in Kaner’s presence—so close to him—and exhaling. “No. It’s not some sort of gay thing. I know you’re capable of not pushing me into an alleyway on the streets of Geneva and trying to get my private life published worldwide.”

“If you asked, I would.”

“I know you would. That’s why I’m not asking.”

Neither of them seems interested in moving from where they’re standing. Johnny’s about to make a comment about how they should get going, but Kaner’s got a weird turn to his mouth that’s stopping him.

“How long are you gonna keep going back and forth on whether or not you're going to flirt back?”

“I don’t think I’ve really been going back and forth on anything.”

“Maybe you’d be less uptight and worried about any gay shit I might try and pull in public if you weren’t so adamant about not making this happen.”

“Making _what_ happen?” Johnny asks, scowling. “I fucking swear, Kaner. I know you want to make out with me. Yeah, fine, I probably want to make out with you too. But I’ve kind of got bigger things on my mind right now. This is hard, Kaner. I need you to make this easy on me.”

It takes Kaner a moment to look away. “Sorry.”

It doesn’t sound perfect, like he means it completely, but it doesn’t stop Johnny from pulling him in and patting him on the back anyway. “We’re cool.”

Kaner shrugs. “Like you have to tell me when we’re cool. We've always been cool. You're not capable of being mad at me.”

Johnny spends twenty seconds trying to figure out if he was actually mad at Kaner when he was away during the war. “You look good,” Johnny says, maybe feeling slightly guilty enough for it. “You did at the funeral too."

“Thanks,” Kaner says, shrugging. Then he scrunches up his nose. “You look better in red.”

“Red suits are kind of a bit much when it comes to economic deals, don’t you think?"

“Red and white are literally the national colors of both Canada and Switzerland,” Kaner says. “I think it’d show a great commitment to brotherhood on your behalf.”

Johnny doesn’t even know if there’s a proper response to that, so he just rolls his eyes and moves to adjust Kaner’s tie for him, despite getting his hands swatted at. “You did mine without asking. Suffer for it.”

“Can you even tie anything other than a Windsor knot?”

“Yeah,” Johnny says, actually grinning. “I can do a Half Windsor too.”

“Black suits and boring tie knots,” Kaner sighs, “this is what life as an important governmental figure is.”

“If you stop whining I’ll convince the kitchen staff to give you sprinkles to put in your yogurt at breakfast.”

“You can’t silence me with the promise of a fun breakfast food, Jonathan Toews. You eat oatmeal every single day and you _like_ it, which is just abnormal and I don’t know how you got it into your head that I would want to kiss your disgusting mouth. That likes oatmeal.”

“You’re saying my breakfast habits are going to keep me from getting laid?”

“As your only current suitor,” Kaner says, pushing Johnny away when he starts tightening his tie too tightly, “yes. Absolutely. You will never ever get laid.”

“Well since you are my only current suitor, I’m thankful for small favors.”

“Come off it, Tazer. You’ll want me sooner or later.”

“It’s gonna be much, much later if you keep calling me Tazer.”

“That one totally just slipped out!” Kaner says, reaching out into the air and trying to grab his words back before they escape.

“Does being around me make you devolve back into being sixteen?” Johnny tries to frown.

“Yeah. It must do the same to you, since you’re being nice to me.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Come on, let’s go get breakfast.”

They head downstairs into the dining hall, and Sharpy arches an eyebrow at them. “Die you tie each other's ties?”

Kaner gives Sharpy a fascinated look, while Johnny scoffs. “How can you tell?”

“Johnny has no idea how to tie a Pratt knot.”

“How the fuck can you even see a difference,” Johnny sighs, having been mostly unable to notice anything special about his knot compared to Kaner’s Windsor.

“God, you’re like a big child," Kaner says. "How are you the King of Canada?”

“Birthright,” he mutters, sitting down at the spot at the table where oatmeal is already set out for him. “Which also gives me the right to throw my oatmeal at you if you don’t shut up.”

“I’d have to change my suit. We’d be late for our plane.”

“It’s not like they’d let me leave without you, unfortunately.”

“Just for that, I would definitely change into a red suit.” Kaner's grinning too mischievously.

Johnny's eyes narrow. “If either of us lands in Geneva with any sort of maple leaf drawn anywhere on our bodies, I’m leaving you there.”

They don’t, thankfully, though the nine-hour flight is certainly rough on Kaner’s mental state. Johnny’s pretty sure he sees Kaner hide a crossword puzzle book inside of his book on the history of the RCMP at some point (or at least, hopes he’s solving crosswords and not doodling on the inside of one of _his_ books). They lose six hours to time zones on the way there, so it’s late when they finally get escorted to the villa on the outskirts of Geneva that they’ll be staying in for the four days.

“We should sleep,” Johnny suggests, though Kaner looks antsy and ready to explore.

“We haven’t done anything all day.”

“But we have a lot to do tomorrow.”

“Don’t you mean _you_ have a lot to do tomorrow while I just waste away at your side from lack of stimulation?”

“Your day starts when my day starts,” Johnny says, shrugging. “Which is in seven hours, so unless you want even darker circles around your eyes in every photograph, I’d recommend you sleep.”

“You’re so pushy,” Kaner groans. “I don’t like you being in charge.”

Johnny’s face flushes red, because _oh_. It was like that then. Kaner sees it happen and must realize where Johnny’s mind went, because he licks his lips and shoots him a grin.

“You thinking about something naughty, Johnny?”

“Not concerning you,” Johnny says, shrugging.

“Okay then, just checking.” Kaner’s still smirking knowingly, but he lets it drop. “Off to our separate rooms then?”

“Absolutely.”

“Have a good night then, my King,” Kaner says with a laugh, before staking claim on the room closest to them.

He’s totally mocking him. But it’s fine. All Johnny wants to do is go to his room and jerk off anyway.

/

The first day is rough. Johnny’s not perfect at the business game and the only thing he really has going for him is that people still pity him enough not to walk all over him diplomatically. Kaner wants to take him out to a bar, but Johnny’s too worried for his reputation to take him up on it.

“You can go though,” he says after a few moments of deliberation. It would be ridiculous to try and figure out just how much trouble Kaner could get into alone at a foreign bar, so the best course of action was just to trust him not to. Maybe. It's been a long enough day to where he thinks that's okay. “I trust you not to ruin Canada’s reputation.”

Kaner watches for any troubling twitches in Johnny’s facial expression after he says that, but to his credit there’s nothing noticeable. “You sure about that? I can stay here and study up on business models with you if you’d prefer the company. Or the help.”

Johnny shakes his head and shoos Kaner away, but it’s barely before eight when he leaves and only just past nine when he returns, lacking any distinct smell of alcohol. It almost unnerves Johnny, and for a moment he’s worried that Kaner’s going to tell him he got beaten up for being a representative of the Canadian government.

“Not enough pretty faces around,” he shrugs off the question before it’s asked, eyeing the papers Johnny has in front of him instead of Johnny himself. “Besides, the last time I helped you out you ended up giving a pretty great speech, if I do say so myself.”

“Yeah,” Johnny says carefully. “That was pretty good. That mean you’re still down for studying the details of this agreement with me?”

“Do you have a problem with having to explain every other word to me?”

“Not really,” Johnny says, and the way Kaner's face lights up is kind of endearing.

“Perfect. Let’s get to it then.”

It helps—really, actually helps because Kaner isn’t used to any highbrow trade agreement bullshit. He’s the most civilian government employee at Johnny’s disposal, and it’s handy for letting him see what’s most important to the banking details rather than all the legal wordplay that the agreement got drafted up as.

Kaner admits he doesn’t really have a bank account, and tries to call Jessica at one point, promising Johnny that he’d bribe her silence with Swiss chocolate, but it’s unnecessary. They spend an hour and a half just talking taxation and the economic practices Canada adheres to before realizing that it’s eleven and that Johnny, at least, needs to sleep.

“We’ll hit up that chocolate store tomorrow, okay? I think I only have to be in meetings until three.”

“Whatever works for you,” Kaner says. “Should we bring something back for Sharpy anyway?”

“Get him something for Abby but not himself,” Johnny jokes, and Kaner’s actually impressed by the thought.

“You think they’ll ever get married?”

“When I don’t need a babysitter anymore,” Johnny sighs. “So probably not.”

Kaner shrugs. “I think you’re doing fine on your own right now. Maybe when your parents come home you can reduce Sharpy’s duties so he can settle down.”

“You’re my babysitter right now, Kaner.”

Kaner looks like he's about to dispute that, but then frowns. “Wow. That sentence is ridiculously fucked up.”

“Tell me about it,” Johnny says, shaking his head. “But thanks. I mean—I trusted you to handle yourself at the bars tonight, but thanks for making it easy on me.”

“Every once in a while I manage to handle myself."

The glint in his eyes tells Johnny that Kaner’s totally making that a masturbation joke. Maybe the walls in the villa aren’t very thick, and he heard Johnny jerking off last night. Well, oops. It’s his fault for listening if he did.

“That’s a relief, because there’s no one else who can.”

Kaner winces, and Johnny’s almost worried that he’s going to have to explain that that was _actually_ a joke, but then he grins. “You certainly have no chance of handling me.”

It’s definitely a challenge. Kaner probably doesn’t even realize how much he flirts even through simple interactions—not that he isn't calling Johnny out on purpose. It makes the back of Johnny’s neck tingle. “We’ll see about that.”

“Oh, will we.” Kaner says. It sounds more like an agreement than a question.

/

“So, it went well today then?”

Johnny’s back at the villa by 3:30, Kaner in the living room flicking between news channels in English and French but not looking particularly occupied until Johnny comes in.

“You could say that,” he says, shrugging, because it had. Maybe it wasn’t entirely Kaner’s help that had made day two better, but it certainly seemed to have given him a boost of confidence in his own business skills. Someone in the meetings had told him he was making his parents proud. It wasn’t anything special—it’s not like the negotiations were under heavy scrutiny or particularly difficult, since both countries were mostly on the same page, but the reassurance felt good.

Part of him felt like he owed that to Kaner.

“Excellent,” Kaner says, standing. “Time for you to buy me a whole bunch of Swiss chocolate, right?”

Johnny shoots Kaner a look that tells him he knows exactly what he’s trying to do. “I’m pretty sure our agreement was that _you_ would be the one buying chocolate for both of us, since you so desperately want to go.”

“Do you even eat chocolate?” Kaner asks, frowning. Like he really wanted Johnny to just go along with it and buy him food.

“Saying no would be worse than my oatmeal habits, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t know. Are you willing to risk it?”

“Not really,” he says, and Kaner grins. “Let’s go, then. I know which chocolate shop we should go to.” Because he made sure to get the opinions of everyone else in the business meeting—they had all agreed on a quiet place where he was unlikely to be recognized as the visiting Canadian King.

The place is nice, tucked into a side street on the east side of Geneva. Sure enough, no one stops either of them on their way there, nor inside the shop. It’s got two levels to it, and while Johnny stays with Kaner as they explore the bottom floor, he opts to hang back and check out the truffle displays while Kaner heads upstairs. He’s not the one who needs to look at every single piece of chocolate on display before he buys enough chocolate to feed all of Geneva, and all for his three sisters.

He must really not be recognizable at all—which is both kind of surprising considering the media coverage the fire obviously got in Canada, but also puts him at ease—because one of the shopkeepers organizing the truffle display tells him in French that she thinks his boyfriend is very cute.

His own French is slightly rusty (he mentions he’s visiting, not local, but doesn’t specify), and they make polite conversation with each other. He doesn’t bother to tell her that Kaner isn’t his boyfriend—considering the way he keeps coming downstairs to ask for his opinion in English on whether or not he thinks the sisters that Johnny hasn’t seen in years would like certain chocolates, he may as well be.

It doesn’t bother him here, in relative anonymity, and he starts to wonder if maybe his semi-speech to Kaner about representing the Crown before they had gotten to Switzerland _was_ some of gay thing. He shrugs it off. The shopkeeper keeps trying to convince him to buy certain chocolates, ones that are surely a declaration of affection, for Kaner. He almost does.

Johnny actually ends up buying all the chocolate anyway, because _of course_ Kaner doesn’t have that many Swiss francs on him. He’s a little cautious of using payment that can be traced back to the Canadian Crown because the clerk who keeps calling Kaner his boyfriend in French that Kaner doesn’t understand ends up being the one to check them out. She doesn’t bat an eye, however, when he hands over an obviously Canadian credit card—he might be a little bit tacky, maybe.

“What did she keep saying to you?” Kaner finally asks as they were making their way back to the villa, having at least offered to carry the bags of chocolate cartons that Johnny had ended up paying for.

“She thought you were cute,” Johnny says, shrugging because it definitely wasn’t a lie. Just, she had thought Kaner was cute in tandem with him. And maybe they were. So what.

“Everybody does,” Kaner says modestly, grinning at Johnny. “Nothing about how cute you are, though? I think that’s kind of rude.”

Johnny rolls his eyes, but it doesn’t stop his brain from focusing in on the compliment. “No, definitely just endless praise for the way your eyes lit up every time you asked me what I thought about certain chocolates.”

Kaner stops walking, and Johnny has to look back at him—standing on the street with his jaw hanging open a little weirdly. “What? Keep moving.”

“She totally thought we were dating.”

Johnny shrugs. “Maybe?”

“You didn’t correct her?”

“It’s not like I care.”

“You’re the King of Canada,” Kaner says evenly, though Johnny can tell he’s definitely confused about the conversation.

“She didn’t know that. I spoke French to her.”

“You don’t care that she thought we were dating?” Kaner asks, eyeing Johnny suspiciously. “Because you definitely seem like that’s a misconception you would care about correcting.”

Uh oh. “I don’t know?” he says, because it’s the most honest thing he can think of. “I mean, in the context of the chocolate shop I didn’t—we were anonymous there. It would be harder to let it slide if I’d been talking to someone who knew who I was.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying a lot of things, Kaner. Stop me when you hear the one you like.”

“Just tell me straight up—do you want to start something between us? We can be as quiet about it as you want, but you have to fucking include me in these decisions, Tazer.”

Johnny’s in no position to reprimand him over that usage. Kaner knew what he was doing with it.

“I don’t know how to do this.”

Kaner starts walking again and doesn’t respond. He doesn’t look at Johnny for the rest of the walk back to the villa, but also doesn’t seem to be glaring at him out of the corner of his eyes. So Johnny will take what he can get right now.

But, shit. He needs to figure this out.

Sleeping that night is brutal, because he dreams about Kaner’s mouth in ways that he hasn’t before—not even when he was sixteen and experimenting. There’s no cold sweat to wake up to, no heart-pounding fearfulness that would drive him mad trying to figure it out. Just an undeniable boner and the knowledge that Kaner, sleeping in the next room over, isn’t entirely happy with him.

They have two more days here. Johnny spends the entire third one in follow-up meetings, zoning out whenever he can to think about Kaner. He’s glad to see that Kaner’s at the villa when he gets home instead of getting drunk, and they wordlessly decide that going out to eat would be too much hassle.

They’re on the couch, neither of them really watching the documentary about rainforests that’s on in the background—Johnny can tell for sure that Kaner isn’t because it’s been dubbed into French. So. “I’m sorry,” he starts, and Kaner’s head turns to look at him, which is pretty much all he was hoping for. “For being so obtuse. I didn’t realize.”

“Yeah,” Kaner says, shrugging. “I don’t think either of us did.”

/

They’re still kind of not talking to each other for the entire flight back, and now that Johnny no longer has a need to brush up on economic banking policies, he’s left with nothing to do. He settles for watching one of the private jet’s television channels and not thinking too much about the way Kaner keeps glancing at him, like he’s waiting for him to stop being an idiot and talk to him. Johnny doesn’t know why he won’t, but Kaner isn’t starting anything either, so at least they’re on even footing.

It’s late when they get back to the palace, even with the six hours they get back, and Sharpy’s waiting for them as they walk into the front corridor. They must look pretty sour, because he starts frowning as soon as he sees them.

“What’s wrong with you two, then? Lover’s quarrel?”

“Fuck off,” Kaner says, though Johnny had been planning on it too. “It’s late.”

“Fine. I guess my big news can wait until morning then,” Sharpy says, shrugging at the two foul faces looking at him.

“Tell us, Sharpy,” Johnny says. His throat sounds raspy from not talking all day, and he once more tries to ignore the fact that Kaner’s frown deepens thoughtfully as he looks at him.

“No. It can wait. You both need to either get some sleep or sort something out.”

“I’m out, then,” Kaner says, and despite the fact that he wanted to know what Sharpy’s news was, as well as that Kaner’s bedroom isn’t exactly down the hall from his own, Johnny follows him.

He must realize it pretty quickly, because they’re barely out of Sharpy’s earshot and vision when Kaner turns around and tilts his head to look at Johnny like he’s completely foreign. “What, Johnny? Go to your own room.”

“We need to talk.”

Kaner regards him warily for a moment, then sighs. “Then let’s go to your room. Your bed is more comfortable.”

“That’s not the kind of talk—”

“I want to lie down,” Kaner says, shaking his head. “And if you're going to assume I just want to fuck you, maybe we shouldn't talk.”

Johnny makes an embarrassed face and then nods, waiting until Kaner’s next to him in the corridor before turning around so they can head to his room. It takes a couple of moments of silent, awkward walking, but eventually Kaner brushes their hands together briefly and wraps two fingers around Johnny’s. He guesses this is part one of their talk.

“I didn’t really,” he starts as soon as they close the door behind them and flick the lights on, but Kaner’s not pausing to wait for him to speak, choosing to flop down on his bed fully clothed.

"Shut up,” he says, but there’s no menace to it. “Give me like two minutes to recover from the absolute hell that is enduring a nine-hour flight in almost complete silence and then we can talk.”

Well, he’s joking with him again, so Johnny thinks that might be a good sign. Johnny strips his suit jacket and tie off and collapses down on the bed next to Kaner. “Sure. Whenever you’re ready.”

It takes Kaner longer than the two minutes he requested to start talking, and at two points Johnny has to look over to make sure he hasn’t fallen asleep in his nice clothes. He hasn’t, though, and on the second occasion he looks back at Johnny and grins.

“We’re both idiots.”

“Not gonna argue with you.”

It takes another minute for the ball to get rolling again.

“I thought about you while I was in the military, you know.”

“Considering I was the Prince of the country you were fighting for at the time, I’m not exactly surprised.”

“No,” Kaner says, turning his head. “I mean, like, I thought about you when I masturbated.”

Oh. Right. “That’s… great?”

"I don’t know,” Kaner says, and Johnny frowns. “Sorry, I don’t mean that in a ‘wow thinking about Tazer was a waste of time’ way. I mean, just I—I think I got this kind of picture in my head. Of you and I, back when we made out those times. I guess I didn’t think you’d change.”

“I haven’t,” Johnny says, shrugging. “I’ve just been too preoccupied with thinking of how I’d become the King one day. And now that’s happened earlier than I expected and I feel like I missed about ten steps along the way. You’re one of them.”

Kaner chuckles. “That’s nice of you to say. But if you—if this is something you _want_ to do, but can’t because of the throne, I can’t blame you for that.”

“I could do both if I tried harder.”

“You try hard enough.”

“You’re the one who’s been helping me figure this shit out,” Johnny says. Nothing really changes in either of their expressions when Kaner tangles his fingers in Johnny’s. It’s easy. “I’ve been stubborn.”

“For the last twenty-three years, yeah,” Kaner says, smiling.

Kaner looks absolutely fascinating, grinning sleepily in Johnny’s direction. “You should make out with me,” Johnny says after a moment. Kaner looks like he’s not entirely sure what Johnny means by that.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“Ugh. I was planning on just falling asleep here and counting on you being too nice to make me leave. I didn’t think I’d have to earn my keep.”

“Oh," Johnny says, embarrassed. "Another time then.”

“I mean we can totally—”

“No,” Johnny says, shrugging. “Take off your suit and go to sleep. I’ll turn the lights off.”

He crawls off the bed, leaving Kaner to prop himself up on his elbows and look at him as he flicks the bedside lamp on and then moves to turn the overhead lights off. “I’m just gonna warn you that if we end up making out in the morning that we’re both going to have gross breath and it’s not going to be romantic at all. You sure you don’t wanna do this now?”

Johnny turns around so Kaner can see him roll his eyes before turning the lights out. “If we make out tomorrow morning I won’t have eaten oatmeal yet. Fair enough trade?”

Kaner’s shrugging off his suit jacket and looking at him still. “I suppose that’s a good point.”

Johnny only hesitates for a fraction of a second before removing his undershirt, leaving him in only his boxers, and crawling under the covers. Kaner doesn’t seem to want to sleep shirtless, but he’s soon next to him and the lights are off. He waits for Kaner to make the first move, which doesn’t take long, and soon enough he’s got one of Kaner’s legs and arms straddled over him, Kaner’s breath hot on his neck.

Johnny feels his dick start to stir. “You comfortable?”

“I could sleep on a bag of rocks,” Kaner replies. “But yeah. I’m super comfy. How about you?”

“I’ll probably overheat in the middle of the night thanks to you, but I’m fine for now.”

Kaner presses his nose into his neck instead of responding.

/

The next morning, in the study, it turns out that they probably should’ve pressed Sharpy for his big news the night before.

“You were in contact with my parents while we were away?”

“That’s right,” he glances between the two of them. “Good to see you two seem to have fixed whatever was wrong between you.”

“Tell Johnny about what his fucking parents said, asshole,” Kaner says, prodding Sharpy with his foot from where he’s sitting. “But yeah, we did.”

“Well, they didn’t say much to be honest.”

“Do you know where they are?”

“Kind of,” Sharpy says, not looking entirely sure. “I know of their general location, but not _exactly_ where in they are.”

“Did they say when they’re coming back?” Johnny asks, eyeing Kaner. “Because I’m ready to give the throne back any day now.”

“It’s been just over a week,” Sharpy says, shaking his head. “But, ah, no. Kind of the opposite, really.”

Johnny doesn’t like the sound of that. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They want you,” he makes a sweeping gesture at both Johnny and Kaner, “to visit them next week, when they’ve got a more stable location to hide worked out. They’re a bit touch-and-go at the moment as far as where they’re convinced is safe.”

“They want me to come on the trip?” Kaner asks, and Johnny doesn’t really mind Kaner coming, but it’s a question he was interested in asking too.

“Yeah,” Sharpy says, eyeing Johnny. “That’s my doing. I got notified yesterday morning that there’s a news story breaking in Geneva that a local chocolate shop worker talked with the King of Canada, and that he told her that he had a boyfriend. I figured your parents should probably know about that, shouldn’t they?”

Johnny leans back in his chair and glares up at the ceiling, swearing. Kaner taps his fingers on his thighs.

“So it’s true? Your parents thought as much.”

Johnny glances at Kaner, who to his credit doesn’t look like he’s about to remind Johnny that he definitely predicted his parents knowing.

“It wasn’t at the time,” Johnny says slowly. “But I guess it is now.”

“And you didn’t tell me because…” Sharpy trails off, realizing that Johnny and Kaner were probably preoccupied thinking that they’d fucked up. “I mean, they don’t care. I don’t care either, by the way, but. Your parents don’t care, Johnny.”

“Why do they want to see me?” Kaner asks, which Johnny is more than thankful for.

Sharpy keeps looking at Johnny for a moment, hoping to get some sort of response out of him, but he eventually sighs and turns to Kaner. “They like you. They’re hoping Johnny’s happy with you. It’s nothing bad, I promise,” he says, looking back at Johnny.

“Did they want to see me before you told them of the rumor?” Johnny asks.

“Yeah,” Sharpy nods. “We talked two days ago and they asked to see you, then I called yesterday and told them about the rumor and they asked for me to have you bring Kaner.”

“Okay then,” Johnny says, shrugging. “That settles that. Next week?”

“Yeah. They’ll get in touch with me when they’re confident they can stay still for a few days.”

“Are they still in Canada?” Kaner asks. Johnny hadn’t even considered it as a question, so he’s grateful to know.

“Yeah. Manitoba.”

“Winnipeg?” Johnny asks, laughing. “Probably not, but they’ve always been fond of the area. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“I guess we’ll see in a few days,” Sharpy says.

“How are we going to keep the story from breaking?” Kaner asks, eliciting a shrug from Johnny.

“We probably don’t have to. It’s not like they have a recording of me calling you my boyfriend. Rumors will be rumors; the tabloids will eat the story up and the real newspapers here won’t bother running it.”

“Are you okay with this?”

Another shrug. “What’s there not to be okay about?”

/

He doesn’t expect to be caught with his hand down his pants that night, largely because he doesn’t expect Kaner to show up shortly after nine. And of course Kaner has the key to his room now that he’s taken over Johnny’s alarm clock’s duties.

So. A little awkward, maybe.

“Were you just—”

“Uh, no?” Because, well, he’d gotten his hand out of his boxers before Kaner had stepped into the room at least, but it was pretty obvious. His trousers are down around his ankles and he looks guilty of something.

“Oh. Because if you were, I can go. Or help. Or whatever.”

“Neither,” Johnny says. “I mean—stay, but don’t help?" He blushes, then reiterates: "I wasn’t doing anything.”

“Okay,” Kaner says, shrugging.

Johnny watches him standing in the doorway for a moment before he realizes that Kaner didn’t come here to tell him something. “Is there a reason you decided to barge into my locked room?”

“Companionship?” Kaner tries, glancing around the room. “You wanna watch a movie with me?”

“What movie?” Johnny asks tentatively, knowing that a lot of the movies he had in his old room would’ve been destroyed in the fire. Which means Kaner would’ve picked it from one of his own collection. And that’s not exactly promising.

“Uh, Finding Nemo? Mulan?”

“Mulan,” Johnny says after a moment.

“I knew you’d pick the one about soldiers,” Kaner says, grinning.

“Fine. Let’s watch Finding Nemo then.”

“No way,” Kaner says, pulling the movie from his back pocket. “I actually only brought Mulan anyway.”

“You’re an asshole,” Johnny says, standing from the bed to pull his trousers back up.

“Woah, what’re you doing that for?”

“It’s a children’s movie, Kaner. I'm not going to sit in my boxers while we’re watching Mulan.”

“Who says we actually have to watch it?”

Johnny lets out an exasperated sigh, but kicks his trousers back off and lounges back on the bed. Kaner sets the movie up on the television that’s positioned nicely at the end of the room opposite the bed, so that they can watch it lying down. It’s not lost on Johnny that Kaner leaves his pants on.

They barely make it to Reflection before Kaner’s completely closed the space between them and tangled his fingers in Johnny’s again, staring at him rather than the movie and grinning too brightly considering what he’s probably thinking of. Johnny tries pretty hard to ignore Kaner’s eyes and focus on Mulan’s instead, who’s still wondering when her reflection will show whom she is inside. It’s like his life runs a bad parallel to this movie. Kind of. He’s just trying to ignore Kaner.

It’s so _hard_ though—because Kaner keeps grazing their entangled hands on his thigh and getting his mouth so close to Johnny’s neck and he just can’t stand it anymore and—“God, fine. Just do it already Kaner.”

Kaner swings one leg between Johnny’s thighs so that he’s straddling him at an angle, fingers still together in one hand and left arm sliding behind Johnny’s back for leverage even though they’re leaning back against the bed. He leans down and kisses Johnny’s jaw first, trailing up to his mouth slowly before breaking off to put their foreheads together.

“This is going to be so much better than when we were sixteen, I promise.” He almost sounds like he’s bragging, but Johnny doesn’t care.

“Just fucking kiss me already.”

“Wow, you didn’t listen when I said I didn’t think you being pushy was cute, did you?” He can't even keep a straight face when he says it.

“I’m gonna push you off of me if you don’t _do something_. Now.”

Kaner doesn’t tempt him any further, tilting his head down into Johnny’s mouth and starting the kiss off hard instead of easing him into it. He doesn’t care that Johnny’s out of practice if it means pushing him around—which he does. The first one is incredibly sloppy on Johnny’s end, and he thinks maybe he tries to use tongue a bit too early, because Kaner pushes it back into his mouth with his own. Not that either of them mind that.

“Let me,” Kaner says when he pulls away. “Seriously. Let me do it. You know I’m good at helping you.”

Johnny almost glares at him, but stops himself short. “Yeah, okay.”

Kaner moves back down, into him, and Johnny lets him kiss first and follows his lead. His mouth keeps pressing into Johnny’s hard, with a lot more control than Johnny thought Kaner would have in him, but it’s still desperate in a way that distracts him completely. It takes a few moments and a couple of separations, but eventually Kaner flicks his tongue against Johnny’s teeth and asks for access.

They’ve untangled their fingers by this point, Kaner using the free arm to brace himself against the bed while Johnny runs both hands along the back of his shirt, drifting underneath to press against skin every so often. Johnny’s willing to let Kaner’s tongue go anywhere he wants, and he presses his to Kaner’s as much as possible, helping it to explore.

“Fuck,” Kaner mutters as he pulls away, moving his mouth back down Johnny’s jaw and kissing at his neck. Johnny’s not ashamed to moan into it, pushing his hands further along Kaner’s back. Neither of them says anything about how their dicks have been pressing into each other’s thighs since the start of the kiss.

“How far are we—” Johnny manages to get out before Kaner starts biting at his collarbone, eliciting a grunt.

“Do you wanna stop?” Kaner asks, bringing his head back to Johnny’s. The arm that’s under him is toying with the bottom hem of his shirt, pressing fingertips into the small of his back every few seconds.

“Maybe we should,” he says shakily. “Not that I don’t want to continue, but—”

“Waiting’s fine,” Kaner says, pressing his mouth to Johnny’s again for another kiss. “You gonna let me sleep here tonight?”

“We have a movie to finish,” Johnny points out, which makes Kaner laugh. “And it’ll be late when it’s over. You may as well stay.”

“Awesome.” Kaner leans down for another kiss before freeing his arm and rolling off of Johnny, re-tangling their fingers and lying as close to him as possible.

/

It’s not exactly a shift in their dynamic—Kaner’s involvement in his parents’s scheme meant that they had been revolving around each other for more than a week now—but enclosed rooms with Kaner in them suddenly seem to have less air than usual. Johnny doesn’t say anything about it, but he guesses Kaner notices too, since Sharpy certainly does.

“You two are insufferable to be around,” he says a few days later, still waiting on confirmation from Johnny’s parents on where and when they can see each other. “I don’t know why your parents named me your chief advisor if they saw this coming.”

“So you can do all the shitty jobs while I get to make out with Johnny.”

“You and Abby are worse,” Johnny adds.

“At least we don’t run a country,” Sharpy says, sighing. “Though maybe we should, since you two make it look so easy.”

“We all know Abby would destroy you in running a country,” Kaner says. “You’d still do all the shitty jobs. And probably have to work even harder, since she'd probably try to dissolve Parliament and turn Canada back into an absolute monarchy.”

Sharpy hangs his head. “Yeah, probably. At least I’d work for her instead of you two.”

Johnny doesn’t seem to think it pertinent to remind Sharpy that Kaner is not, in fact, in any position of power just because they’re together, so Kaner doesn’t either.

/

They’re in the middle of making out that night, still fully clothed but frisking each other anyway, when a couple of knocks and Sharpy’s voice come from beyond Johnny’s door. Begrudgingly, Kaner rolls off of him so that Johnny can answer it, and he tries his best to tuck his dick into the side of his pants so Sharpy doesn’t get too much of an eyeful.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Sharpy says almost sarcastically. “But I talked to your parents a few minutes ago.”

“You didn’t let me speak to them?” Johnny says, a little angrily.

“They can’t speak over the phone for long,” Sharpy shrugs. “Don’t take it personally. They want to see you in two days.”

“Where are they?”

“Still in Manitoba, kind of near Winnipeg so you were close enough. Your dad gave me coordinates for a meeting point, so I wrote those down. He says Kaner can drive you guys there?” Sharpy looks at the bed, where Kaner’s sitting up now. "You'd have to get going tomorrow to meet them in two days."

“Sure,” he says. “I can do that.”

“What’s my excuse for leaving the palace?” Johnny asks, glancing back at Kaner. “I can’t just take my war advisor and go missing for a few days. It’ll look suspect, especially with the Geneva rumors in the tabloids.”

“Your parents said to announce that you had received anonymous information that the fire could’ve been started on purpose, and that you were pursuing more details. It doesn’t attack anyone directly but still takes the public eye off of you. If you return without any solid leads, it will be to no one’s real surprise.”

“That’s perfect,” Kaner says, grinning.

“It’ll work,” Johnny agrees. “Did they say anything else?”

Sharpy catches the worried look in his eyes. “No, and they still don’t care that you and Kaner are boning.”

“We’re not—”

“Okay,” Johnny interrupts Kaner, shooting him a shrug. “That’s good to know. Thanks Sharpy.”

“I’ll let you two get back to whatever you weren’t doing, or whatever.”

“You better,” Johnny says. “Goodnight, Sharpy,” and then he’s pushing the door closed with Sharpy still in the doorway, earning him a few rude words from the other side of the door while he locks it.

By the time Johnny turns back to the bed, Kaner’s got his shirt off and is working on unbuttoning his trousers. He walks back to the bed somewhat cautiously. “You after something?”

“Leading by example,” Kaner says, reaching out for Johnny’s arm and pulling him onto the bed. “I wanna take your clothes off.” He ducks down on top of Johnny and kisses him, running his hands down Johnny’s sides until his fingers are stumbling on the button of his trousers.

Johnny arches his back up and then down to pull his shirt out from under him and flings it off of the bed while Kaner manages to undo his zipper. “Do you want me to—” he makes a motion with his hand that causes Johnny to go red.

“Not tonight,” he replies, pulling Kaner up to kiss him, his pants still unbuttoned around his waist. “Let’s just—”

“Yeah, okay,” Kaner says, kissing Johnny again. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“We’re going to see my parents soon.”

“I’m going to make out with you so much while we’re there. Just try and stop me.”

Johnny grins into another kiss. “I wouldn’t want to.”

/

They have to make the trip in two segments, since they’re driving, so they have a bed and breakfast organized to accommodate them for both lay-over nights (there and back) without much fuss and they’re set to leave the morning after Sharpy gives them the news. Sharpy helps Kaner pack a cooler full of snacks and things to tide them over on the trip and warns them not to get up to too much trouble while they’re driving.

“No roadside handjobs where anyone could drive by and see you,” he warns, which makes Kaner laugh but Johnny turn red. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time while you’re visiting your parents to get your exhibitionist kicks.”

Kaner suddenly has a vision of fucking Johnny up against a washing machine in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere—and it’s pretty fucking rad. He’s in the middle of mentally biting at Johnny’s neck as he pushes inside of him for the first time when Johnny snaps his fingers in front of his face, glancing at him awkwardly. His boner is probably obvious in his pants, but whatever.

“You okay there, Kaner?”

“He was definitely thinking about hot sex in front of your parents, dude.”

“Woah, I totally was not!” Kaner defends, and luckily Johnny rolls his eyes at Sharpy rather than acknowledging the comment.

“Are we ready to go?” Kaner shrugs—Sharpy’s the one with the checklist. He holds it out for Johnny to take. “I guess we are. We’ll be back in a week then. Hold down the fort, Sharpy.”

“Not like anything’s actually going to happen around here with you gone hunting for arsonists.”

Johnny had done the presswork for that announcement earlier, and it was to air sometime this afternoon, while they were already on their way.

“Guess not,” Johnny shrugs. “Don’t trash my room while we’re gone. If you and Abby have sex in my bed, I’ll know.”

Sharpy grins. “The construction on the east wing should be done by the time you’re back, so you’ll have your old room again. You’ll have no way of knowing of anything that happens in your current room over this break.”

Johnny glares at him, and Kaner’s trying to suppress a laugh (successfully enough so that Johnny doesn’t glare at him too, but Sharpy shoots him a thumbs up.)

“Speaking of,” Sharpy says, and Johnny snaps out of his glare. “Are we still—”

“Yeah,” Johnny interrupts. “You can handle it, right?”

Sharpy makes a face like he’s just recognized that Kaner has no idea what he and Johnny are talking about. “Oh, sure. Of course I can handle it.”

“What’s going on?” Kaner asks, but Johnny meets him with a look that tells him not to ask. Because it’s a surprise. Or something. “Fine, then. I don’t need to know. See if I talk to you again this entire trip.”

“You’ll cave before I will,” Johnny says—because he has no tact—but the light in his eyes is kinda weird, and Kaner can see it. “Besides, we both know you can’t keep your mouth shut around me.”

So Kaner has a thing for kissing. It’s not weird. Johnny’s mouth is awesome, and he’s awesome at kissing, especially kissing Johnny’s mouth. So. “You totally love every second my tongue is in your mouth, don’t even play.”

Sharpy looks more amused by the light that sheds on their bedroom dynamics than embarrassed to have heard that, which is probably for the best. He claps Johnny on the back. “Don’t knock what you’ve got, Johnny. I’m sure Kaner’s at least a little bit cute when he’s naked.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Johnny says, and Kaner’s so absolutely sure that it’s an invitation that he goes somewhat weak in the knees.

He covers it up. “Close enough to it. I mean you’ve seen—”

“Maybe this is a conversation you two should have in the car,” Sharpy’s glancing at them awkwardly, probably feeling even more like a third wheel than he did those times when Johnny and Kaner would blatantly ignore him in the study.

“You’re the one who brought it up,” Johnny shrugs. “But you’re right. We should probably get moving, since we have to get all the way to the bed and breakfast before we can stop for today.”

“Ten hours of driving and having you stare at me awkwardly after I win the battle for the radio,” Kaner sighs. “Sounds like a great time.”

“You’re not picking the radio station.”

“I’m driving.”

“I’m the King.”

“I’m your boyfriend though.”

Johnny waits a moment, probably thinking of any of the sexual suggestions he could make that would convince Kaner to let him pick what music they listen to, but then he drops it like he wouldn’t touch the rest of the conversation with a ten-foot pole. He climbs into the passenger seat of the car while Sharpy closes the trunk.

“Have fun,” Sharpy says, like it’s an acknowledgment that they will rather than a request. “Don’t ram the stick too much further up his ass.”

“Wow,” Kaner says, kind of laughing. “You’re lucky he couldn’t hear that one.”

“I live on the edge.”

“His Royal Highness might walk you right off the edge of a cliff if you’re not careful.”

They share a laugh, which Johnny can probably see out of the rearview mirror, because he rolls his window down and none-too-pleasantly asks Kaner if he’s going to make the trip with him after all.

Kaner wouldn’t miss it for the world.

/

The first drive is mostly uneventful. The most almost-exciting thing that happens is that Johnny’s a big fucking tease who keeps stretching and yawning as much as possible, pulling his shirt slightly above his waist for Kaner to see as he does. It happens at least fifty times, and while at the start Kaner was totally down for it and was ready to suggest that maybe Johnny should ignore Sharpy completely and let Kaner watch him jerk off as they speed down vacant roads, he’s getting kind of antsy about it now. They’re ten minutes from the bed and breakfast and Kaner’s pretty sure that ravaging Johnny up against the front door was _not_ part of the agreed-to terms of their stay.

Plus it would be bad publicity if anyone saw.

“You gonna stop yawning any time soon?” He asks when Johnny does it again and he feels his dick twitch. It’s less the view and more the thought that Johnny’s teasing him and all of the pent-up sexual desire he’s had flowing from him the entire trip that does it, but still. “You haven’t even done anything today.”

“You’re boring,” Johnny says, which just absolutely stuns Kaner because he’s pretty sure Johnny’s about the most boring passenger ever. “And your music is crap.”

Kaner let Johnny switch radio stations eight hours ago, so what _ever_.

“You tried to keep a conversation about snow going for an entire half-hour,” Kaner says, shooting Johnny a quick unimpressed glance. “There’s only so much you can say about that.”

“Snow’s the least sexy thing I can think of,” Johnny sighs. Oh, good. So he’s feeling the repression too.

“Is that why you keep trying to flash me with your abs? Not that it’s working.”

“Do you think we should,” he starts, but trails off. Kaner’s a little worried about asking him to continue while they’re still driving, so he leaves it be. “Oh. Here, turn here.”

The bed and breakfast isn’t anything super extravagant—they picked it for the location and the promise of media anonymity—but it’s nice, and the older lady who meets them at the door hugs Johnny like he’s her grandson rather than the King of Canada. Kaner thinks maybe it reminds him a bit too much of seeing his mother, because he definitely almost tears up and makes Kaner carry the heavier suitcases.

They really, honestly, don’t mean to start anything at the bed and breakfast, but suddenly it’s ten at night and they realize they’re the only other occupants of the entire house, which could easy fit three other families. It doesn’t help that there’s only one bed in the room they were taken to by the older woman, who maybe put a little more faith in tabloids than Kaner and Johnny would’ve hoped.

Johnny’s kind of naked—as in, boxers only, with even those lying a little lower on his waist than usual—when Kaner comes back into the room from showering out the pain in his neck he got from driving all day. “Well then. What children’s movie are we watching tonight?”

“How about,” Johnny says, shifting on the bed and looking slightly uncomfortable. It’s almost a turn-on for Kaner how reliant on him Johnny is when it comes to flirting, since Kaner’s the one with the experience. “How about we watch something else?”

He mentally takes that back—it _is_ a turn-on.

“Are you talking about a different kind of movie?” Kaner asks, knowing that he probably sounds like an idiot for asking but not wanting to misread Johnny’s intent because of how stimulated he got during the trip.

“I was thinking handjobs,” Johnny says, kind of obviously unable to keep up any pretense of ‘sexy flirting.’ Not that Kaner cares at all—because fuck. Yes. Fuck yes. Handjobs. Holy shit.

“Handjobs sound interesting,” he says, trying to pretend he can keep calm about it. He kind of wishes that Johnny would’ve dropped hints about that earlier, because he already re-dressed in the bathroom and feels a little bad about not being able to just drop his towel and lie naked next to Johnny like everyone in the movies does. He locks the door behind him and starts moving to the bed, unbuttoning his pants again and throwing his shirt off.

Johnny doesn’t make any move to take his boxers off yet, which to Kaner is a sign that he wants to make out first. Kaner drops his pants and pulls off his socks as normally as he can manage before crawling onto the bed. Johnny must like what they’ve got going for them as far as bedroom positioning goes, because he gets comfortable in the middle of the bed and then pulls Kaner on top of him.

He’s better at initiating kisses than he was last week, but he still lets Kaner control the pace of it. Tonight seems more intense than before, though Kaner’s not going to be the one to call what they were doing before tame. Johnny looks like he’s thinking of absolutely nothing but Kaner when they break the first kiss, and it makes a shudder run down his spine. “If you’re fucking with me about this handjob thing I might cry,” he warns.

Johnny kisses into him again instead of answering, but he guides one of Kaner’s arms down his side until it’s resting at the waistband of his boxers. Kaner knows what to do from there, but slowly, so he starts by only slipping his thumb under the band and moving his other fingers against the fabric. Johnny’s breath hitches in the kiss slightly when Kaner’s thumb rubs along his hip, but then everything is smooth and he seems to kiss back even more intensely.

“How do you want to do this?” Kaner asks, pulling to the side.

“Are you willing to—”

“Of course I am.”

“Okay,” Johnny says, breathing kind of weirdly. “I was thinking you could, um, give me a handjob. And then I’d watch you jerk off? I don’t know if I have the skill to—”

Kaner’s kissing him again already, with a lot more tongue than he usually does so it’s kind of sloppy but also so much more satisfying than he would’ve expected being sloppy to be. “Fuck,” he moans into Johnny’s mouth. “When do you want me to start?”

“Soon,” Johnny says, briefly kissing him. “Now, maybe?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” And then Kaner’s thumb hooks on the inside of Johnny’s waistband and starts pulling one side of his boxers down. He tries to keep kissing Johnny while both of his hands take his boxers off, but he can’t balance himself easily so it’s not as hot as he thought it would be. They stop making out so that Kaner can pull Johnny’s boxers down far enough for his dick to come free, and he admires it for a moment and grins at Johnny before completely stripping him of his boxers.

“I packed, uh, stuff,” Johnny says, “in my suitcase. So there’s lotion in there.”

“Okay,” Kaner whispers, getting off the bed and digging through Johnny’s suitcase just long enough to find the lotion. He doesn’t say anything about the condoms and lube he sees as well, but thinks that there’s definitely a reason Johnny put them on top of the lotion. They’d be impossible to miss.

Kaner slicks up his hand and lies next to Johnny on the bed, his dry hand making its way to the small of Johnny’s back. He leans in to kiss at Johnny’s collarbone at the same time he first puts his hand to Johnny’s dick. The sharp intake of breath that Johnny involuntarily has is so invigorating that Kaner moves his hand all the way down Johnny and presses a finger into the loose skin of Johnny’s ballsack, moving them around slightly. Johnny’s groaning is a lot hotter than Kaner could’ve imagined before now.

“I’m not gonna take too long,” Johnny whispers, sounding almost apologetic, but an incredible feeling of accomplishment wells up inside of Kaner.

“Don’t worry,” he says back. “Neither will I.”

He strokes Johnny slowly at first, keeping an eye on his face to make sure he doesn’t grab too tightly and make Johnny uncomfortable, but Johnny seems more than happy to just let Kaner have his way with it. His eyes are closed and his head’s thrown back about as far as it can go against the pillow, which Kaner takes as a very good sign, so he starts going a little bit faster.

Kaner kisses Johnny’s collarbone again, intent on distracting him from coming as long as possible so that he can have more time to commit Johnny’s panting and sharp breaths and faces to memory.

It kind of has the opposite effect, however, because suddenly Johnny’s coming with Kaner’s mouth at his neck and wrist tight at his groin. Kaner feels how warm Johnny’s entire body gets as the orgasm shakes through him, such hot blood circulating under him that Kaner’s hand feels almost cold against Johnny’s cock.

“Holy shit,” Johnny breathes out when he opens his eyes. Kaner’s still kissing him, trying to bury his head in Johnny’s neck so he doesn’t give away how big of a stupid smile he has plastered on his face, and his hand’s still wrapped around his dick. “I can’t believe—”

Kaner doesn’t care that Johnny’s chest is dirty and that he just showered, because he rolls on top of Johnny anyway and starts kissing him hard. Johnny gives the kiss everything he has, even though his body’s still reeling from the orgasm. “Did you like that?” Kaner knows he doesn’t need to ask, but he wants to hear the words come from Johnny’s mouth anyway.

“I’m almost sorry for you that you didn’t get to experience it from where I was,” Johnny says, smiling softly. “But then again, I guess you did, didn’t you?”

“In a sense,” Kaner says. The throbbing of his own dick isn’t even bothering him at this point—he just really wants to kiss Johnny some more.

Johnny seems to remember, though, because his hands start fiddling with Kaner’s own boxers. “Your turn.”

“You don’t have to,” Kaner says, and Johnny nods. He slips his boxers off and straddles Johnny at the waist. “Do you mind if—”

“Fucking _do it_ ,” Johnny whispers, and it’s practically all that Kaner needs to almost send him over the edge. He makes a couple of quick pumps and then some longer, more thorough ones, then back to quick. He comes within thirty seconds, absolutely losing it and having to brace one hand against Johnny’s shoulder in order to avoid falling on to him while he does.

Kaner stays there for a moment, breathing slowly getting steadier, before he rolls off of Johnny and onto the bed. Johnny entangles their hands together, because he really seems to like holding Kaner’s hand, and they both know that they’re going to have to clean up in a moment. But for now, there’s just breathing and whispered swear words.

/

If the couple running the bed and breakfast heard any part of their handjob escapade last night, they don’t mention it. Not that they would, even if they did know. Johnny’s status is a bit of a downside every so often. Regardless, they enjoy a pleasant breakfast during which Kaner tries his best to practice charming the pants off of people who are older than him rather than his age.

Not that Johnny’s parents need another first impression of him. Nor any impression whatsoever. But still. An impression of him as Johnny’s boyfriend, even though he was kind of Johnny’s boyfriend back when they were sixteen too and he talked with them then. All of this was a little confusing. He was still kind of hung up on the night before.

Johnny doesn’t say much at breakfast, though he’s certainly not rude, which makes Kaner think that he’s probably still thinking about it too. Neither of them really talk as they’re packing up and getting in the car either, but judging by Johnny’s face, Kaner doesn’t have to worry. It’s more of an easy silence than an awkward one.

They have ten more hours of driving ahead of them, which is mostly a total drag because it means they won’t show up at the meeting point until eight, and Kaner’s going to be tired of driving and wanting more of Johnny. But Johnny’s going to need time to be with his parents. Kaner can deal, though. He’ll kick Johnny’s ass at Monopoly or whatever other activities monarchs in hiding find fun, and Johnny’s parents will love the way Johnny hooks his arm around Kaner. Which hasn’t happened yet—but it _should_ and Kaner definitely feels like he’s owed it after last night.

Johnny doesn’t fight when Kaner changes the radio station back to one he wants which, combined with the way he’s spent the first ten minutes staring out his window, is a little concerning.

“You okay?”

Johnny turns to him like he hadn’t even realized until now that he was ignoring Kaner, and he looks sorry. “Yeah. All good. Just thinking about a lot of stuff.”

“It’s been two weeks since you’ve seen them,” Kaner offers, assuming that would be the subject of the utmost importance to Johnny. “That’s a long time.”

“It isn’t really, though,” Johnny sighs. “I mean, we didn’t even know when they would be in contact next after the fire. We could be taking this trip four months from now, and yet I still feel like there’s no concept of time when it comes to missing them.”

“Well missing someone isn’t something that has much of a delay to it. As soon as they’re gone, they’re gone. Can’t really gradually start missing your parents—it’s always there.”

Johnny frowns, but nods. He goes silent for a while.

It takes him twenty minutes before he turns back away from the window to fiddle with the radio station, but instead of changing it to something more his tastes, he turns it off completely. Kaner glances at him. “Headache?”

“Nothing like that.”

“Okay. I can totally get you something at the next gas station we see if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Kaner. I’m fine.”

“Sure.” But the car needs gas anyway, so they pull over and Johnny tries to make himself as invisible as possible. Kaner can get away with going into the convenience store with just a hat on, since no one really pays too much attention to the members of the King’s entourage.

He comes back with sinus relief tablets, since they were the closest thing to aspirin he could find, and offers Johnny a sandwich from their packed supplies. He turns both down, shrugging.

Kaner must keep looking more and more worried when he glances at Johnny, because six hours into the trip Johnny has to turn to him and put his hand on his thigh to make him stop biting his lip. “I’m fine, really. Thinking about… us stuff.”

Which is code for last night, probably. “Talk to me?”

“The night we got together,” Johnny says after a moment. Which means a week ago—the night they came back from Switzerland. Kaner hadn’t really thought of it since. “You mentioned that you thought about me when you were away.”

“Yeah,” Kaner confirms, not confident enough in where Johnny might be going with this to listen to him in silence.

“I didn’t say anything, but—I missed you too. And I don’t mean in the grew-up-too-fast way. I missed you like I didn’t even know I could.” Johnny pauses, but he doesn’t look like he’s waiting for Kaner to say anything so he doesn’t. “The night of the fire, I clung to you when I thought my parents had died. Maybe subconsciously, but some part of me was furious that I had lost them just when you had come back. I know I didn’t show it at first and I was so damn confusing but—”

“It’s fine,” Kaner says, because he can hear Johnny’s breathing get a little shaky and he doesn’t know how he would handle him crying over him when they’re on a trip to see his parents. “Promise. I think we can put all that behind us.”

“Okay,” Johnny says, breathing evening out. “Just… basically since the time we were together as teenagers, tonight’s the first time I’m going to have both my parents and you. Not perfectly, I guess, but in a way that’s good enough for me for the moment.”

There's a bit of a pause, and then “I love you,” comes out of Kaner’s mouth before he can actually think to stop it, and it’s obvious, which is probably pretty telling. But also: “Shit. Sorry.”

Johnny laughs, but it’s not spiteful. He shrugs. “I love you too, Kaner.”

There must be some sort of freaky psychic connection that comes from giving someone a really good handjob, because the moment he hears his name on the tip of Johnny’s tongue, he gets that it’s an invitation. “Well. I’m glad that’s out there. Tazer.” He kind of tacks it on like a question just in case he’s misinterpreting, but Johnny nods, probably feeling disgustingly proud of Kaner for understanding.

“Tazer, yeah.”

Both Tazer and Kaner spend the rest of the ride looking way too happy for their own good.

/

There’s no one at the meeting point when they get there, which is weird because Sharpy called about an hour before to let them know that he’d been in touch with Tazer’s parents and that they would meet them at eight. They’re parked at the edge of a dirt road leading into a forest trail that looks like it hasn’t been explored in years.

“Do you think they’re in trouble?” Tazer asks after a few minutes, when they’re just sitting in the car. Kaner grabs hold of his hand and squeezes.

“No. They just have to be cautious. Maybe we should walk down the trail a little bit?”

“I don’t want to miss them,” Tazer frowns. “So I’d rather—what’s that?”

The bushes on the side of the trail rustle a couple of times, and then a hand that’s slightly difficult to make out in the darkness pops out and starts beckoning to the car. Tazer’s hopping out of the car before Kaner can even point out that the hand definitely doesn’t belong to either of his parents, so Kaner kills the engine and gets out too.

A woman stands from the bushes when they get close, smiling at them warmly, although Kaner is still suspicious. “I’m Evelyn,” she says. “I’ve been a friend of your parents for many years, King Jonathan. They are staying with me at the moment, and I have been sent to guide you.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” Tazer says, and Kaner knows it’s the right thing to ask, even though Tazer looks like he’d just about trust anyone who told him how to find his parents right now.

“Your mother told me to ask if you enjoyed your birthday carnival.”

It’s the same message she included on the note she gave to Kaner on the night they escaped from the fire. Tazer catches it too, because he breathes shakily. “Okay,” he says. “Lead the way then.”

They start off through the forest, and Evelyn explains herself to them. She was a friend of Andrée’s from the early days of her rule, when she had lived in Toronto. She had married when Andrée had torn down the gay marriage law, and her wife was a painter before she passed away last year. She had wanted to be immersed in nature, and so they had, with the Crown’s secret permission, been granted the land to build a cottage in the middle of the woods.

“My mother visited Winnipeg last year on a personal leave,” Tazer says. “But she wouldn’t tell anyone what it was about.”

“That was when my wife died,” Evelyn says. “Your parents have been aware that they were targets for assassination for quite some time, and this plan has been in motion long before the week before the fire. Your mother not only protected Madeline and me in the early days of our relationship, but also secured the future for me and my three children when we lost her. It's the least I could do to keep them hidden away in my home.”

“For how long?” Kaner asks.

“They aren’t sure yet. Their safety has yet to be guaranteed.”

“Okay,” Tazer says. The conversation quiets down for the rest of the walk, which is just a couple more minutes, because both Evelyn and Kaner can feel Tazer start getting nervous.

It turns out that when you have the backing of the Canadian Crown, you can get almost anything you want. The cottage is large enough that it ends up more reminiscent of the villa that Tazer and Kaner shared in Switzerland than a simple cottage in the woods. It’s walled in by trees on all sides for maximum nature exposure (that’s what Evelyn says, anyway) but seems to have been designed at strange angles around the trees.

“There are four bedrooms,” Evelyn says once they can see the house in the distance. “My daughters are still young, so they’re all sharing. Unfortunately, with your parents in one and me in another, you two will have to share the last one. Your parents said you wouldn’t mind, but you’re still the King and there’s only one bed—”

“No, that’s great,” Kaner says, smiling at Evelyn. “We’d want to share anyway.”

“So you two are together?”

“My parents didn’t tell you?” Tazer asks.

“They must not have thought it important,” Evelyn shrugs, smiling. “They just said you two were very close.”

It sounds extremely scripted to Kaner, like of course Tazer’s parents told Evelyn that the King was gay for him. But Tazer doesn’t seem to catch that, because he’s grinning to himself more brightly than Kaner’s used to seeing. So he doesn’t say anything.

/

Kaner doesn’t expect to get swept up in Andrée’s hug alongside Tazer, but her grip is iron strong and he wouldn’t dare try and break away from it. So he ends up squished next to Tazer, practically almost kissing him, when she wraps her arms around both of them the moment they step into the cottage. “My boys,” she says, squeezing even harder. “Well, my boy and his boy. Oh, my boys.”

Bryan manages to wrestle Tazer from Andrée, which leaves her staring at Kaner and smiling before pulling him into a single-person hug. “Oh, Patrick. You finally got Jonathan to understand.”

“Kaner,” Tazer says, still trapped in a hug from his dad. “Kaner couldn’t get me to understand something if he wrote me a ten-page paper on it.”

“That definitely sounds like you’re saying you’re the problem, not me, Tazer,” Kaner says, looking defiant. “Also I think your mom likes me more.”

Andrée laughs and turns to fuss over Tazer. “You two have nicknames for each other, that’s so sweet.”

Kaner and Bryan shake hands while Andrée continues to treat Tazer less and less like he’s twenty-three. “Should we, uh, put our stuff away?”

Evelyn reappears in the room, holding the hand of her youngest daughter. “Here, follow me. I’ll show you where your room is.”

It’s probably a coincidence (but also probably _not_ ) that the only remaining bedroom is on the other side of the house from the other three. But they’re not going to complain, of course. They’d discussed it in the car and, well, the proximity to his parents wasn’t going to stop Tazer from getting hard. They'd be alone at night. And he’d packed all those supplies. They couldn’t go to waste.

It’s late enough that, despite Tazer saying he wants to spend time with them, Andrée and Bryan brush him off and tell him that they can’t really go anywhere, and that they’ll have the next three days together. It might be a little bit implied that they think Tazer is pretty wound-up right now. It might also be a little bit implied that they think Kaner should help him fix it—except it’s not implied at all because Andrée definitely winks at Kaner when Tazer’s back is turned.

“You wanna,” Kaner starts, when the door is closed and locked behind them and all goodnights have been said. He makes a jerking motion with his hand in front of his crotch.

Tazer rolls his eyes from the bed. “We did that last night.”

“Well fine,” Kaner says sarcastically. “Didn’t realize you were so interested in changing it up.” He moves over to the bed and lounges down on it, rolling over so that he ends up on top of Tazer. He pushes his shirt up and kisses his chest, getting encouragement from the way he feels Tazer’s dick very suddenly start pressing against his own chest. “How about this, then?” He puts his face down at Tazer’s crotch level and starts unbuttoning his pants.

“Blowjobs?” Tazer says, kind of strained.

“You think I’m fucking around?” Kaner laughs. “I mean, why not? We’re gonna—I’m gonna fuck you some time. May as well throw blowjobs in.”

To be honest Kaner wasn’t even sure if Tazer would be willing to let him fuck him, but he goes red rather than protesting, so he’s going to assume he’s in. At some point. He’ll be in. In Tazer. Haha, _hell yeah_.

Tazer shoves him in the ribs with a foot, probably because Kaner’s train of thought ends up written all over his face. “Stop imagining me naked and actually get me naked, you fuck.”

It doesn’t take anything more than that for Kaner to start sliding Tazer’s pants off while simultaneously trying to remove his own shirt. Tazer rolls his eyes and helps him with it before removing his own. There’s not much of a hesitation before the boxers come off tonight. Kaner decides to strip as well, making sure to keep eye contact with Tazer while he does so he can watch him fidget and shake while his dick swells harder.

Kaner’s looming over Tazer’s dick before he realizes that it’s been a while since he’s given a blowjob—but Tazer’s also never had one, so it’s not like he needs to brush up on his technique beforehand. Just don’t bite accidentally, or whatever. He keeps thinking that to himself for a moment before Tazer catches on that he’s psyching himself up. Nervous.

“Really?” He looks like he’s about to laugh. “You’re the one who offered. But we don’t have to—”

Just like Tazer to issue challenges. Just like Tazer to suck in all of the breath in the world when Kaner drops his head and takes in the tip of Tazer’s cock. He probably should’ve spat first but—too much warning, not enough satisfaction of hearing Tazer get caught off-guard. He’s not _exactly_ an amateur, so he goes down further than that but knows his limits.

“Fuck,” Tazer whispers, then makes a strangely pitched noise, which causes Kaner to kind of laugh around his dick. “Shut up. Like you wouldn’t either.”

“Can’t really say anything with your dick in my mouth,” Kaner pulls off to say, winking at him before he reacquaints Tazer’s dick with his cheek. Tazer moans and ends up clutching for fistfuls of Kaner’s hair, which is a little uncomfortable but also incredibly stimulating.

It’s not really surprising that Tazer doesn’t last too long. Kaner’s not far enough down on him to get surprised by Tazer’s increasingly desperate warning whispers, but he just mentally shrugs and keeps blowing him through the orgasm. It’s kind of—wow—no one’s ever come down his throat before, and he just decided he’d let Tazer do it for the hell of it. He’s pretty sure it’s amazing, and from the way Tazer keeps fucking twitching and gyrating his hips a little more, Kaner gets the feeling that he liked it too.

“Do you want me to?” Tazer asks after a minute, when Kaner pulls off and makes sure he’s swallowed as much as he can before he moves up to kiss Tazer, just in case it’s a little gross. If it is, Tazer doesn’t say anything.

“Only if you’re feeling up to it,” Kaner says, even though he wants Tazer’s mouth on his dick more than he wants the sun to rise again tomorrow.

To his credit, it turns out that Tazer is up for it as long as Kaner doesn’t mind that he’s an amateur. Kaner scoffs and is too busy internally jumping for joy to really pay attention to whatever variant of the ‘everyone starts somewhere’ line he delivers. It must’ve been okay though, because they swap positions without much hassle.

It’s so difficult to avoid ramming his dick up into Tazer’s mouth when Tazer starts off so fucking slowly. He’s licking the tip—which doesn’t make much to Kaner because it’s not like it makes him easier to blow, but fuck if it doesn’t drive him absolutely wild. “Do I—?”

“Yeah,” Kaner breathes out. “Just, uh, as slow as you need.” It’s physically painful for him to say that. “And, uh, keep swallowing.”

“You close already?”

Well, fucking kind of, you little shit. But that’s not what he’s talking about. “No, like. When you think you can’t take anymore. It helps if you swallow.”

Tazer seems to get that without more need for clarity, and then he’s down on Kaner, little by little. It’s completely ridiculous to Kaner how much Tazer makes him flail around the bed, being unable to help arching back into it every other second. He can’t even function properly enough to grab Tazer’s hair in retaliation, and it takes him less than two minutes until he’s moaning and begging Tazer off unless he wants Kaner to come on his face.

Tazer does pull off, sticking low to Kaner’s groin and jerking him off with quick movements. He ends up coming all over his chest, and the role reversal from the night before isn’t necessarily lost on him. But all he can manage is a “Holy fuck.”

“Too hot to handle?” Tazer mocks, not willing to just lie on top of Kaner and kiss him while there’s sperm all over him. He does kiss him from an angle though, and deftly finds the box of tissues that’s on the bedside table so that Kaner can clean himself up.

“You better fucking believe it,” Kaner groans. He’s not even going to pretend that Tazer isn’t going to be the absolute _end_ of his stamina.

/

Days one and two pass quickly, largely in exaggerations of Switzerland by Kaner and Tazer’s Scrabble hands that are just too strong. Kaner doesn’t win a single game of Scrabble, but he wins half of the Monopoly games that don’t go to Andrée, and he thinks that’s pretty good. Evelyn obviously has free reign to go into town as much as she pleases, so she ends up doing all of the grocery shopping (though Kaner disguises himself and goes with her once, when Tazer was looking especially like he needed alone time with his parents).

None of them mentions the third day being the last, but it’s obviously weighing on everyone’s minds—especially Tazer’s.

They’re in their room shortly after lunch, and Tazer presses him up against the wall, kissing his forehead and looking fond. “Come walk in the woods with me,” he whispers.

“I don’t think fucking on pine needles would be very comfortable,” Kaner says, even though he’s already running his hands down Tazer’s back.

“I’m not after your dick,” Tazer responds, rolling his eyes. Part of Kaner is a little sad about that one. “I mean, not right now. Just walk with me.”

“Sure,” he says, and they promise not to be too long because Andrée is hungering for more Monopoly and Bryan’s favorite TV show is almost over.

“Constitutional monarchy is kind of fucked,” Tazer says when they’re twenty feet from the cottage. It’s certainly not the foot Kaner was expecting this conversation to start off on, but eh. He rolls with it.

“You don’t like being King?”

“It’s not like I do anything.”

“You did stuff in Switzerland.”

“Yeah, because mom’s some sort of finance genius and wanted to handle that herself. It shouldn’t have gone to me, except for the fact that we had promised Crown representation.”

Kaner shrugs. “We started dating in Switzerland.”

Tazer seems like he wants to contest that point—because really Switzerland had just made them mad at each other. But yeah, he thinks, technically they started dating the moment Tazer didn’t correct that shopkeeper who called Kaner his boyfriend.

“I want to abdicate.”

“You don’t have anyone to give the throne to,” Kaner says, shaking his head. “Besides, you’re fine. It’s only been three weeks.”

“We’d find someone. Some long-lost distant relative. And I know I’m fine, but still.”

Kaner gets an inkling that he knows what this is really about. He stops and leans against a tree, waiting for a few seconds for Tazer to realize he’s not walking anymore and turn back to look at him. “Is this about us?”

“Kind of,” Tazer says, shrugging. “In a sense that I’m trying to figure out which would be easier, or better, whatever—abdicating or coming out.”

“But you’re saying you’d rather do either of those things than break this off?”

Tazer’s never looked so damn _transparent_. It makes Kaner shake.

“Yeah.”

He has to swallow so many words before he can breathe again. “Oh. Cool.”

“I guess it is pretty cool,” Tazer mocks, smiling. He closes the gap between them, pressing Kaner up against the tree and initiating the kiss. “If you keep letting me do this to you I’m going to take it as an invitation to top.”

“Fuck off,” Kaner mouths, kissing back. “Are we—tonight?”

“Maybe,” Tazer says, grabbing Kaner’s hands. “Let’s go back.”

/

Everyone is downright _antsy_ at dinner that night, and it’s really throwing Tazer off, because the last time his parents were antsy at dinner it turned out that they were starting a fire in their own home and faking their own deaths. Evelyn had taken her daughters into town for dinner, waving off Tazer’s statement that she most certainly wouldn’t be ruining a family dinner with a quick excuse. Not exactly reassuring, looking back on it. Kaner, at the least, only seems to be antsy because of their conversation about maybe sticking his dick inside Tazer later—he’s certainly taking every opportunity he can to brush their knees and hands together.

“What’s going on?” Tazer asks when he really can’t take anymore—almost to the end of dinner. “I feel like you’re waiting to spring something on me.”

“We need to talk about what’s happening after this,” Bryan says, though Andrée sighs at him and shakes her head.

“When are you guys coming back to the castle?” Kaner asks, fork poised to grab more food as if the conversation wasn’t kind of important.

It takes a moment, but finally Andrée purses her lips and looks directly at Tazer. “We’re not.”

“I fucking knew it,” Tazer grunts, pushing his chair back and standing. Kaner grabs his wrist firmly and then tangles their fingers together. “This was going way too well.”

“You’re the King now,” his mother says. “We can’t take that from you.”

"I don’t _want_ it,” Tazer says, but he sits back down. “I’d rather have you back.”

“There’s nothing we can do.”

“You were supposed to be figuring out how to avoid getting assassinated.”

“We don’t know how, Jonathan. We upset a lot of people. You haven’t.”

“That’s bullshit,” Tazer growls. “Everyone has enemies. I mean if you think that Kaner and I going public isn’t going to—” He stops there because of the look his mother’s giving him.

“You want to announce it to the people?” She asks, delicately.

“I don’t know,” he mumbles.

“You do,” Andrée says. “We support that. We want you to. It was on our list of things to discuss after dinner, wasn’t it?” Bryan nods.

“There’s a list?” Kaner asks, squeezing Tazer’s hand tightly under the table. “How much are you worried we’re going to screw up?”

Andrée gives him a careful look. “We think that you and Jonathan will be perfectly capable of handling all of this.”

“So what,” Tazer says after a moment. “You two are going to keep moving from place to place? Or are you going to live here with Evelyn for the rest of your lives?”

“No,” his mother says, looking down. “Neither.” She pauses. “You will be taking Evelyn and her daughters back to Toronto with you tomorrow. They’ll stay in the castle—people from Parliament will recognize her as a friend of mine. Just explain that you met her while you were away and you felt the need to help a friend of your mother's and people will shrug it off.”

There’s silence for a moment, and suddenly a lot of things make sense to Kaner. This was planned from the start of the trip—it’s why he had to drive them here in the minivan, why the bed and breakfast they had stayed at had room for more people, why Evelyn had referred to Andrée as the one who secured her family’s futures. Sharpy organized the bed and breakfast—was in on it. God, fucking hell. He’s not sure if the look on Tazer’s face means he’s recognizing all that too, but he’s not going to broach the subject.

“What about _you_?” Tazer looks like he wants to scream.

“We’re going to stay here. This place was built in secret—very few people knew Evelyn was here. You can visit us a few times a year, whenever you’re near Winnipeg, without it looking strange.”

“How are you going to feed yourselves if you can’t go to the grocery store without being recognized?”

His mother sighs, like she feels bad for being the one to tell him. “We relieved Sharpy of his duties when he told us of the Switzerland rumor. He and Abby are engaged now, and they’re moving nearby. He wanted to do it. You’ll be able to use him as a proxy to talk to us, and we can communicate with you from afar.”

“I don’t want that,” Tazer says, and suddenly he’s squeezing Kaner’s hand way too hard.

Andrée ignores it. “If you’re going public with Patrick, which you should, you can’t appoint him as your chief advisor. We made up the war advisor position to get him government access, but he won’t need that if you’re together. That won’t need refilling. You can opt out of having a chief advisor, too, if you’re willing to let Parliament oversee the future economic actions that I was dealing with.”

“He’ll want to let them do that,” Kaner says, because Tazer’s mouth is screwed shut.

“Is that all?” Tazer says, standing again. “I’m going to our room.”

Andrée looks like she wants to stop him for a moment, then turns her gaze to Kaner. “Keep him safe, okay?”

Kaner nods and pushes back from the table.

Tazer’s on the bed, turned away from the door, when he walks in. It must be pretty obvious that it’s him though, because Tazer just lifts a hand up and beckons him over, patting the bed.

Kaner crawls onto the bed behind him and kisses the back of his neck, running one hand along Tazer’s side. “At least they’ll have a permanent place to stay,” he whispers, continuing to kiss the parts of Tazer that he isn’t hiding in the pillows.

“Yeah,” Tazer says after a moment, pushing around so he can face Kaner. “Just—you know.”

“Sure. I know how much you want this to be different.”

“Everything is so different these days.”

It’s maybe the most melodramatic Kaner’s ever heard Tazer say, but. He tightens his grip around Tazer and pulls them too close together, foreheads touching and legs having to interweave themselves to get out of the way. They’re practically groin-to-groin, and Kaner’s sure that he feels Tazer’s dick stiffening up in response to his own, but it’s not the time.

He kisses Tazer hard, like he wants to ruin his mouth so he can’t say anything like that again. He ends up on top of Tazer, breathless and driven by a glint in his eyes.

“When we get home,” Tazer says, kissing him. “When we get home.”

Kaner nods in the kiss, running his tongue against Tazer’s lips. “Okay.”

/

 _When we get home_ almost turns into _fuck it, right now_ when they’re back in the bed and breakfast the next night, having forgot that the trip home would take two days. Leaving that morning had been iffy at best—Tazer kept putting on a brave face and telling his parents that he was over it when he obviously wasn’t. Evelyn hadn’t said much, though her youngest daughter spent most of the morning getting carried around on Tazer’s shoulders.

But they left. Tazer had promised with all the duty of a good son to call when they were home, and that he’d send letters with Sharpy. He vetoed Kaner’s whispered suggestion of slipping a sex tape of them in with the letters, but it had made him smile more than leaving had.

The older couple at the bed and breakfast doesn’t say anything about the fact they had brought four more people with them this time. They separated into rooms and after a few minutes of back-and-forth on whether or not they should just go ahead and fuck now, they opted for watching each other jerk off and came almost simultaneously.

The drive back to the castle the next day is about as quiet as a ten-hour trip with three young girls in a minivan could possibly be—Kaner plays a sightseeing game with them for about thirty minutes before they realize that the easiest way to make them happy is to turn the radio station off of Tazer’s melodies and onto Kaner’s pop music.

Sharpy’s waiting for them when they get back, grinning when Kaner makes a quick jab about already having his bags packed for Winnipeg. Abby’s there—wow, neither of them have seen her in so long—seeming overjoyed for all four of them on their relationships. It’s nice, and just seems so normal. Tazer forgets for a minute that he’s left his parents behind until she lets it slip that she knows—which, whatever, she needed to. But also—disappointment.

Sharpy talks to them while they walk into the reconstructed east wing to get to Tazer’s—Tazer and Kaner’s?—room. And, sure enough, when they get in, all of Kaner’s stuff has been moved into the room. Being around Tazer must make him more perceptive, because it clicks for Kaner almost instantly that this is what his and Sharpy’s hushed conversation as they were loading up the car was about.

“You’re a sap,” he says, which causes Tazer to grin. He stumbles over a few words before Sharpy thumps him on the back and he manages to get out a “thanks.”

Tazer pulls him inside and orders Sharpy to help Evelyn and her kids settle in. Technically he doesn’t have to, since he’s been in early retirement for the past week, but he obviously gets what’s going on between the two, because he doesn’t even crack a stupid face. He just lets the door slam closed on him, listens for the lock, and grins at Abby. She raises her eyebrows at him.

/

It takes ten minutes of naked making out on the bed before it comes spiraling into their brains that, holy fuck, here they go. Not that there’s much tension or nervousness in the air—anticipation, sure. But making out gets a foreign tinge to it when it’s foreplay, and it’s more pronounced now than it was either time they made out before handjobs or blowjobs.

“How do you wanna do this?” Kaner asks, mouth lingering over Tazer’s in the midst of it all.

“You’re already on top,” Tazer says, acting like it would be such a hassle to switch places. Kaner would’ve totally been willing to say ‘stick it in me’ if he was in Tazer’s position, but the King also probably has more pride than him.

“Okay—so you’re good with that? On your back?”

“Yes, Kaner,” Tazer rolls his eyes now. “I want you to fuck me.”

“Awesome,” Kaner breathes out, staying above Tazer and kissing him some more. He manages to get up and move when his arms start quivering and he risks falling unromantically on top of Tazer. Tazer’s suitcase is by the bed, thankfully, and he pulls pretty much everything out of it in the search for the lube and condoms.

“You gonna wreck the room?” Tazer asks, looking unimpressed.

Kaner bites back an _I’m gonna wreck you, asshole_ and grins, holding up what he was looking for.

Tazer’s breath catches in his throat, and he nods. “Let’s go then.”

Kaner makes no jokes about virginity—they don’t even mention it; it’s been long enough since Kaner was on the receiving end that he's probably just as tight as Tazer anyway. He leans over Tazer and starts kissing him hard again, but draws back before it gets to the point where he usually adds tongue and starts kissing down Tazer’s chest and running his hands over Tazer’s shoulders. Tazer shakes in satisfaction underneath him, and Kaner glances up to grin at him. He’s expecting Tazer to tell him to stop stalling, but he sees the desire in his eyes and it works even better than chirping at him would.

By the time Kaner kisses all the way down to Tazer’s dick, words are coming out of Tazer’s mouth in jumbled orders. He was going to add a blowjob to the foreplay cycle, but at this point he’s pretty sure Tazer would come before he got halfway down, which might ruin the whole penetration idea. Instead he lubes up his fingers on one hand and presses the other down on Tazer’s chest, stroking his skin.

“You ready?”

“Fucking _go_ ,” Tazer gets out.

He gets the first finger in easily enough—plenty of lube, and it helps that Tazer seems to be enjoying himself so much that he’s fairly relaxed. He moves it back and forth a few times and also makes circling movements that encourage moans from Tazer. Kaner kisses his thigh and feels the rest of his body heat up.

Tazer grabs the hand that’s on his chest when Kaner pushes the second finger in. Not because it’s painful (he seems to squirm once and then get used to the feeling) but because his hands brush down at his dick and he almost starts masturbating. “You doing okay?” Kaner asks, making more circling motions and fingering Tazer a little bit faster.

“Doing awesome.”

“Yeah you are,” Kaner says fondly, going a little bit red from how embarrassing he must sound. Tazer doesn’t say anything about it, of course, since he’s too busy rocking his hips back and forth slightly onto Kaner’s fingers.

The third finger is a bit tougher to get in, and Kaner whispers words of encouragement whenever Tazer makes a disgruntled noise or breathes sharply. But then it’s in, and Kaner starts shifting his fingers between a horizontal line and a pyramid shape to stretch Tazer out more completely. He pushes them in as far as he can manage, and must brush against Tazer prostate, because Tazer bucks up suddenly and growls _almost_ sexily.

“Fuck me,” he says, and it’s more of a demand than an expression. “Kaner. Fuck me right now.”

Kaner grins. He uses a towel that he pulled from Tazer’s bag to wipe his fingers down so he can tear open the condom wrapper. He kisses Tazer deeply as he does so, allowing for a few seconds of tongue before he pulls away and fits the condom over his dick.

He might actually be closer to shooting than Tazer is, he’s so fucking turned on, but he puts on a brave face and tries to make sure he’ll actually get all the way inside of him before he comes. The first push is probably the hardest, and he has to lean forward to let Tazer grab onto his forearms for stability once he’s got at least the tip of his dick inside of him.

Tazer lets off a string of swears as Kaner keeps pushing in, but quickly follows up with a “If you stop I’ll fucking murder you,” when Kaner looks at him worriedly. So Kaner keeps going forward, slowly—not just for Tazer’s sake but for his own, because _fuck_ if the tightness of Tazer’s ass isn’t making his dick absolutely scream for release.

He lies down on Tazer as soon as he’s all the way in, and Tazer seems to appreciate the lull so he can get used to the full feeling he’s embracing. They kiss because it’s easy to and it’s something they know, but it doesn’t last forever. Tazer nods at Kaner after a moment, and then Kaner’s back up on his hands and starts pulling out of Tazer so that he can get a rhythm going.

It starts so slowly that he’s sure Tazer’s going to get agitated, but when he looks up Tazer’s just grinning stupidly—and so is he. “Let me know when you want me to jerk you off,” Kaner says.

“When you think you’re close. I—I know I am already.”

“Same,” Kaner admits.

He grabs Tazer’s dick and realizes that he’s dry, but Tazer doesn’t seem to mind. He spits anyway, which earns him a breath through gritted teeth. Kaner increases the speed of his thrusts every time he hears Tazer moan, and then starts pumping his dick.

They last maybe another minute like that before Tazer starts bucking his hips more frantically and breathing through his nose because he’s got his teeth clamped down so hard. He comes in spurts through Kaner’s hand, while Kaner loses track of his rhythm in order to focus on getting Tazer off. He’s panting intensely, still coming down, when Kaner feels the pressure suddenly spike in his groin and then relax as he stops thrusting and comes.

Tazer still moans when Kaner’s dick throbs and pulses inside of him, bringing his head back like he might get a second orgasm out of that feeling. He doesn’t though, and after several long seconds and deep breaths, Kaner pulls out of him and tears the condom off.

They lie there for a moment before Kaner realizes that he needs to clean up, and he begrudgingly rolls off the bed to toss the condom and grab a fresh washcloth from the bathroom, since the towel he wiped his lube off with had been flung to the side.

Tazer’s weak—already fast asleep by the time Kaner manages to stumble out of the post-sex haze and come back into the room with the washcloth. Kaner watches him for a moment, gently wiping his chest down so that he doesn’t wake up, before he kisses his forehead and puts a hand to his thigh.

He feels so incredibly warm that it’s amazing to Kaner, even though he knows he probably feels the same way—hot to the touch, blood boiling in veins underneath his skin, heart pounding as he takes in everything about the situation. What it all means, and what he and Tazer are—what they’re going to have to do, to deal with when they make it public. It’s terrifying because it’s so fragile, and Kaner breathes hard when he realizes that. But Tazer’s still so warm beneath him, and Kaner feels the same kind of fire burning in his stomach.

He smiles.


End file.
